Day 24 – Siblings
Joaquim was the much loved, much anticipated younger brother to Manuel (10), Miguel (8) and Isabella (4). No one was more excited throughout the pregnancy than his brothers and sister.
They saw him being born. Miguel cut his umbilical cord. They stayed with me in the bed gazing at him for those first 3 days. They fell in love with him.
When we left to take him to hospital in the beginning, we had no idea that he would not come home for 2 weeks. It really threw us a major curveball. I am a stay at home mom, I homeschool and attachment parent my children. Each of them were breastfed for over 2 years, (Manuel for 4) I carried my babies in slings for a year.
Having to leave them every morning to get to the NICU was torture for us all. We really battled to find people to watch them, as they had only ever been comfortable with very few people. In the end, my best friend Shelly, and my mother in law stepped in and cared for them during the day, but it was not easy being away from them. Even worse obviously, was coming home at night from the hospital, leaving Joaquim. The hospital would not allow parents to stay after 8pm. So it was a constant state of anxiety for us all.
On Manuel’s 9th birthday, we were told that Joaquim could come home. It was exactly what he had asked for as a birthday gift. We were over the moon. To tell you my children embraced their brother is an understatement. They smothered him with love and kisses. The fact that he had lost his sucking reflex and that we were forced to bottle feed him my expressed milk, was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because each of them got to hold him every day, and take turns to feed him. They stood next to me for every nappy change; they helped pick out every outfit. We spent 6 weeks enclosed in a cocoon of happiness and family bonding. We sang songs to him, danced with him, played him our instruments, walked in the garden showing him excitedly all his “firsts”. When it rained, they rushed him to the window saying, “look Joaquim, that’s rain, when you are bigger you can dance in it”.
We had 42 days of memories, 42 nights of a family bed that they shared with him.
On that fateful day, when we took him for a check-up at 4pm, we left the children with my mother in law again. We really thought we would just come home with a prescription and our baby.
We came home at 3am with empty arms, and no idea what we were going to say his siblings.
They didn’t give us much time to prepare our words. Just as my husband had gotten off the phone with the hospital, arranging the undertaker to collect Joaquim, the 3 of them ran excitedly into the room shouting, “where is Joaquim?”
How do you introduce a child to death? You try to protect them from the greatest reality of life. I felt powerless.
I was still in a state of shock, but my husband burst into tears and embraced his children while he tried to find the words to tell them that their brother was not coming home. Manuel was the first to cry. Miguel just kept looking at me. Isabella just kept asking if she could go to heaven to see him, if he wasn’t going to come home.
This past year has been really extreemly hard. I have had to break down at times when I just can’t be strong anymore, and the children see it. Most times, they cry with me.
Isabella talks to him all the time, she calls him “her sister who died”, she often says he is calling her to go to heaven and that just breaks my heart as the fear wrenches from my gut at the thought of loosing her too!
Every time we ride in an elevator, she asks, “Are we going to see Joaquim?”
She says that she is scared of having babies because they die when they come out………
Manuel is melancholic by nature and his anger at the world and its injustices have escalated through this. He keeps asking “why?” I don’t have the answers to give him, as I am asking the same question.
Miguel enjoyed being an older brother so much. He took his responsibility so seriously, and he would hold Joaquim every chance he got and just gaze at him. He is the one who lights Joaquims candle every single morning for the past 1 year and 1 month and 1 day! He hugs the candle every night after he puts it out and they all say, “Goodnight Joaquim”. He even occasionally sets a place at the table for him. It breaks my heart everyday to see them suffering. But that all being said, I have learnt a lot about grief from watching my children. They don’t guard their feelings. What comes out is raw and true and real, and I have taken their lead to allow my grief to run naturally. I cry, I rant, I vent, I retreat, I avoid people and I sometimes act like nothing has happened. I do it in spurts, as a child would, as my children do! We are all not ok, but we do love each other and we talk all the time. We remember Joaquim every day and have found ways to include him in what has become our new normal!
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