Saturday, October 6, 2012

Adrian's urn

Emma has been playing with Adrian's urn during this past month or so.  It was sitting on my night table, and she is still sleeping in our bed, so in the mornings she would get up and start throwing everything off the table onto the carpet.  She threw both the urn and the little icon that was surrounding it onto the floor, several times, before I took it and put it on my makeup table.

Poor Adrian.  He has no way to defend himself against his sister's attacks.
I have tried to tell Emma that the name of the urn is Adrian.  I know she does not get it, but at some point in the future I guess I will tell her that she had a brother born before her, who did not live.  I wonder if that will frighten her.  I wonder how she will process that.  If anybody has any advice about how to approach the issue, it would be much appreciated.  I was just planning to approach it in my usual matter-of-factly way that I use to disclose these facts to anybody who asks.

In the meantime, today I ran into a colleague who had her twins in the same month when I was due to have Adrian.  We were due within a day of each other.  Her girls are now 2.5 years old.  I wonder what Adrain would have done at this age.  Probably given me a hard time through his terrible twos.

These thoughts are quite fleeting though.  I love him just as much as I always have, and think with sadness of his little baby body that never got to live.  I can only thank God for Emma, whose presence makes my life so full and rich and busy that I cannot afford to fall into melancholy anymore.

Is this good?  Is it bad?  Occasionally I experience the sadness fully, just as I used to, and the anger at the waste of a little life.  But these moments are rare, and on most days all I do is the mundane thinking about breakfast, bath, nap, lunch, work, park, dinner, sleep.  And I am happy.

1 comment:

  1. It must be difficult but I am glad to hear that having Emma comforts you.

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