Musings on family

Every now and then I consider the fact that I have now birthed four babies. It makes my head spin with each one, as my family grows bigger, as brothers receive sisters and sisters welcome sisters and still the candle glows on our dining table. I often wondered to myself if I would always be playing catch up. Would my family always seem too small, because we'd always be missing one? How would I ever feel like I had enough children around my table, as long as that candle was glowing?

And so where am I now, now that three are here? Three that is significantly more than the tidy two, two where there is a hand for each child and a parent for each child (in our household). I thrive on being outnumbered, and there is some feeling of relief in simply being here. After Aoife was born, I had a son and a daughter, and my Liam had a sister, but I still felt as if I was running on a gerbil wheel. My daughter did not have her sister! What if I couldn't get pregnant again, because for a while it appeared I could not? What I never had another daughter and my Aoife never had a sister here with her? There were things that I felt I needed my children to have, to make up for having lost Charlotte, and they weren't here.

And now they are, in the form of Fiona Clementine. Our family has broken out of the tidy box. Another sister is here. So the ends of the frayed knot are smoothing themselves out. I feel like some logistics that kept my head spinning have been relieved somehow.

And now, I am free to miss her. I am free to know I am missing this child, this eldest daughter, and there is no way left to scheme about how I might go on to try to produce another child that might alleviate some of that missing piece for our family. I am left to simply stare at that glow in the midst of our dining room table, to ponder that the six chairs around it would, in theory, all be full if she were here.

There is some feeling of settling for having had Fiona, and I feel in my heart that Charlotte chose her for our family for just that reason. She is the baby that has freed me somehow. At the table now, when we light that candle, the children as always offer their blessings. Aoife's blessing always comes in the form of a conversation.
Sarlotte, I wish that you could not be dead and that you could be alive so you could be here to share this lovely meal with our family. And we miss you and we love you.

And Liam offers his own blessing, We love you Charlotte, usually, and now he offers one for Fiona, as well, making some other statement about missing her and wanting her to be here to share our day.

It's strange how she's settled into our family, Charlotte has, as the kids have grown older. When they first started to say things like this, I could have cried every time. Now it's routine, part of each and every meal around our table, and it makes me smile. I thank them every night. And I mean those thanks, because my children have no obligation to love Charlotte. They did not know her. They weren't here to catch wind of the hope, and joy, and love that she brought into our lives. They benefit from it, of course, but they live in the wake of her impact, so they can't see it directly. But they love her, they love her for real from their hearts. And I am so grateful for that. I could not make them feel that way.

This journey just keeps on going. How incredibly different it is now, edging towards seven years since she slipped from our grasp. Three children later seems like a long time, like a long road to have traveled. Now that Fiona is out, and here, and I'm not living with the daily terror of reliving the loss, I feel an eerie distance from the whole experience. Like I had been floating for a long time, hovering over May 13th, and now I have landed. I can see it, clearly, across the water, but I have landed.