Joy and Sorrow

Twenty-three years ago this month, my sister and I increased our mother's grandchild load from one to four in one weekend. I think we blew her mind! It was wonderful and crazy all at the same time and she made us promise never to do that again, as if we had conspired together in the first place!

My sister was blessed with twins, a handsome boy and a beautiful girl and I was given the delight of my life, my sweet baby girl #1. Life was grand, sharing stories and pictures and feeling like once again my sister and I had something in common. It had been a long time since I had that feeling, especially since she had moved away.

Then one morning the phone rang and I could tell from my mother's voice that something was terribly wrong. You know that silence, that long silence that is screaming at you without a sound. My sister's beautiful little girl at 4 months of age, had died in her sleep. The world seemed to stop at that moment yet my mind seemed to race. So many thoughts ran passing by in a split second. There are two I remember strongest. The first was the instant panic I felt for my own child sleeping in her cradle. How does a baby just stop breathing? There is no warning. They are given to you, then taken away without understanding or explanation. The second was guilt at my own child sleeping in her cradle. Why my sister's baby and not mine? How do we share little girl stories now? If I share my joy, do I cause her sorrow?

I did not understand then, nor do I understand now, the strength of a parent at the loss of their child. Even witnessing it so close, I can not imagine myself surviving it. I get nauseous still at the thought of it and something inside of me just wants to curl up into a ball. How do you place one foot in front of the other or for that matter, even get up on your feet? My sister is a remarkable woman. The journey of her pain and sorrow is private and personal, hers to share if she chooses but I will say that she is my hero to endure a pain that is never over.

I find it odd that I think more about my niece's death on her birthday than I do on the day of her death and I wonder if it is that way for my sister? There is not a joyful birthday that passes for this trio of jewels that does not have sorrow mingled in with it. How do you have joy for two without sorrow for the one that isn't there? How do you watch them grow and become young adults and not wonder what she would have been like?

Twenty-three, the same age I was when this all took place, my sister twenty-four. We sure felt grown up but as I look at my baby #1 and my nephew, I know we were still really just kids, made older for the second time, (that's another story) by a death that came too soon and I am reminded that all sunshine makes a desert and I praise God even though I do not understand.