Today Thomas has reached the age that Jessica was when she died. From tomorrow, my first-born child will become the youngest. The natural order of things will be turned on its head yet again, as it has been many times since the moment Jessica died. Another painful milestone on our grief journey. Another reminder of time passing by, of moments missed, of memories never made. Another reminder of the family life we never got to experience.
To know that at this milestone in our own life as parents, our world was shattered. To realise that the life that we had with Jessica will now always be the smallest portion of our parenting life and will become smaller as time moves on.
It is so strange to think that Thomas has been in our world for as long as Jessica was in it. We lived life so differently with Jessica, filling it as much as we could, loving as hard as we could, knowing that the future was always uncertain. Outside of hospital stays and appointments, we were mostly free to get out and enjoy life, to make as many memories as we could. That’s not been the case with Thomas. The Covid pandemic had a big impact on the early years of his life, in addition to the complications that a family life affected by child loss have had.
Since losing Jessica, life has become more complicated. No matter how much we try to focus on being positive, on making happy memories, our experience of losing Jessica will always have an impact on our family life. Grief is always there in everything we do, an undercurrent in every emotion. It is part of the love we have for Jessica, and that love and that grief is as much a part of our family life as Jessica still is. Thomas has never known a family life without a permanently absent sibling. He has never known a family life without grief being a part of it. He might never have known Jessica, but he knows who she is, how much she would have loved him, and he feels her loss at times too.
Sophie’s life too will always have that missing element – all the things that she should have shared with her big sister, the way Jessica should be leading the way. It will always be present in her milestones because Jessica will always be missing from them. She’s also had the complicated experience of her place in the family order being out of sync from the moment Jessica died. My middle child who has never been a middle child. She has been the youngest child, the only living child and then became the oldest living child when she overtook Jessica, but never really the middle one. Living life in the cracks, just as we have done, as part of a family of five that has never known life as a family of five. Living with the milestones that come with child loss.
And today marks another of those milestones, another little shift. From Thomas’s perspective of course, he will always be the youngest. He never knew his biggest sister. He has only known a life with one older sister in it. For him, the natural order of things hasn’t really changed.
But for the rest of us, there is that reminder, yet again, of a world that has become turned upside down. The knowledge that from this point on, both of Jessica’s siblings have overtaken her and will (we hope!) continue to grow and thrive, to make memories and experience things that she never got to do. And that we as parents will continue to watch and be proud of them both, and celebrate those milestones and memories, while always being away of the undercurrent of loss and sadness that is a part of everything we do. Wondering what Jessica would be doing now, what her part in those milestones and moments would have been. Wondering who she would be now, how she would have fitted into this family life. Wishing that she could have been part of those moments. Always aware of the empty space that she would have filled. Moving forward as best we can, always carrying her in our hearts.
