Birthdays and birth and babies are always gonna feel a little different after your first kid dies before they are born. Like many things after loss, you just can’t see them in the same way as you did before.
Birthdays in particular bring up some extra feelings for me. They’re celebratory of course, because we know better than anyone that (yes grandpa) it’s certainly better than the alternative. We know how miraculous it is when everything goes right and a human is born and gets to grow up and experience life year after year. It’s worthy of a party and cake and presents and whatever else you need to treat yourself. (And puh-lease take any complaints about getting older elsewhere. It’s a gift. Quit complaining and eat your damn cake.)
But amidst all the celebration the feelings can get a little complicated.
Even more so when Sam’s birthday sneaks up on me, as it always seems to do because the days are long but the years, guys...they’re so short. Sam’s birthday stirs some feelings in me that I’m never quite prepared to deal with.
I hesitate even to share because I hate the idea that Sam (or anyone else) would ever feel like he’s living in Oliver’s shadow. (Because, hello, he’s not.) But alas, we younger siblings are inextricably linked and compared to those that came before us. It’s just the way it is. And so when it comes time to celebrate Sam turning another year older, I can feel a lump in my throat as I recognize how much I wish we’d gotten this with Oliver. I wish this was our second time celebrating a six year old Gensler boy. I feel cheated and mad and sad.
And of course ungrateful. To even take my mind off the gift of Sam (and Eli and Lorelai). But I know these are the cards we’ve been dealt and we’re just playing the game as best we can. And life repeatedly reminds me that it is possible to feel all the feelings at once. It would be a disservice to myself (and my kids, all four of them) to ignore or disregard these very real feelings.
So I just have to feel the feelings. And vomit them out in writing because the only thing worse than feeling them, would be to keep them locked up inside. I have to share. So I can breathe. And sleep. And wake up tomorrow fully present and ready to celebrate Sam in all his six year old glory. Because damn we’re so grateful he’s ours.
(artistic representation of all the feelings I have inside.)
