I’ve never been sure what the etiquette is on this, but as I was getting a haircut from my childhood barber recently, the issue came up again. He asked about the kids, and upon hearing that our boy is due in August, he asked, “So, this makes three for you again?” This rhetoric always bothers me, as do notions that we’re somehow replacing Emily.
Not sure how to respond, I said that our boy will be our fourth child. As of the moment, despite the loss of our daughter, I’m still a father of three. By August, if the pregnancy is successful, I’ll be a father of four. Do our twin daughters have only one sister each? Does everything reset to the way it was before the youngest child of a family passes away? Are we expected to pretend as though Emily never existed? Must we look at our family the way an accountant would?
Now we’ve lost Kristi’s mom, our childcare provider and, more important, the grandma our girls were very close to. One of Kristi’s aunts, in attempting to console her, said “At least you still have your dad.” Later, she declared that our twins wouldn't remember Emily, because they were five when we lost Emily, and when this omniscient aunt was five, her father passed away, and she has no memory of him. That’s quite a sad commentary on her family, given that she and her siblings should have noticed his absence for all the years hence.
When we lose the ones we love, their absence is still felt, and their presence is never forgotten.
