My dearest Aoibh
I find it hard to believe that I am writing this on your second birthday. I can’t quite work out if it feels like a lifetime since I met you, or only just yesterday.
This week brings up so many emotions. There is a lot of sadness, but I am also trying hard to remember the happiness too. Like all mums on their children’s birthdays today brings me back to your birth story. I can still see the labour suite, and the wonderful midwives who helped deliver you. I remember junior doctors asking to observe your delivery due to your condition and the midwife being so protective of you even then and they were told to go away very sharply! I remember the midwives, your Dad and I trying to guess what time you would arrive and how quickly the medical team arrived when the midwife realised that you were going to arrive much quicker than anyone expected. I wish I could say I remember your first cry but unfortunately it’s one of my missing memories, but I do remember getting to hold you and cradling your warm bum in my hand for the briefest moment. I love thinking about all those things, it feels like almost a different story to the following few days.
In the last few weeks I think I have felt your absence just as hard as when it first happened. My heart has ached for you in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. I think a lot of that is to do with the birth of your brother. I think that maybe there is something almost protective about losing your first child, there is no knowledge of how deep the loss really goes, of how much has really been lost. But now I know, in your brother I see all that I have lost in you. It amazes me that I can feel pride and happiness when I am watching Liam learn and develop, but at the very same time my heart hurts that I don’t get to see any of those things with you. I also feel sad for Liam that he will never experience a big sister/ little brother relationship and I wonder how that will affect him in the future. And in these crazy times I think about your heart condition and how it would have undoubtedly made Covid an altogether more scary thought and sometimes I wonder if I would have been able to cope with the anxiety of it. In truth, in my darker moments I wonder whether some higher being knew that I wasn’t the right mother to care for you.
I think that one of the biggest things in grief is riding all the waves, the happiness of having you, the sadness of losing you and the guilt for moving on through life without you. But I suppose I can only do what I’ve always said I would do, cherish your memory, speak your name and tell the world about you.
Happy birthday Aoibh, I hope you are celebrating wherever you are with cake and balloons and hopefully feeling all the love that there is in the world for you
forever yours
Mum xx
Dear Aoibh 