Guilty
I often hear parents with more than one child talk about the guilt they feel about spending more time with one over the other. About how guilty that makes them, as they try to give equal attention and time to each child. Well what happens when you have several children but they are no longer living?
Second child syndrome
I frequently feel guilt over my second born Arthur because he gets forgotten in favour of his big sister Violet, who is centre stage in everything & poor Arthur as the second child is pushed to one side almost ignored.
Our rainbow Arthur
We never knew Arthur.
Yes I felt him move inside of me. People, our family & friends never met him. He never babbled at people. He never laughed or cried. He never pointed at anything he wanted looking for someone to fetch it for him. He never sighed and rolled his eyes when I attempted to sing poorly. He never looked annoyed when someone sang nursery rhymes to him out of tune. He never orchestrated control of a room full of toddlers & adults so they danced to his tune, despite not saying a word. He never made his displeasure felt through tantruming. He never banged a drum or read a book. He never smiled. He never held a balloon or shrieked with excitement if he spotted a cat or dog. He never saw or rode on an airplane or a boat. He never danced along to music. He never opened his eyes to look around. He never even took a breath or made a sound.
Legally he doesn’t exist
Technically & legally he doesn’t exist, as he was born sleeping at 22 weeks, so he doesn’t have a birth or a death certificate. He did have his own crematorium service and his ashes were buried with his sister. He has his own name in flowers on their grave and in time his name will be written on their shared gravestone but bless him he doesn’t have a lot to remember that he was here.
Easier to talk about Violet
It’s much easier for us to remember and to talk about Violet as lots of people knew her. There are lots of shared memories we can all draw on. We have thousands of photos and some video footage of her. She even had her own circle of friends, who we always remember at Christmas and their birthdays, as that would be what she’d have wanted.
No shared memories or friends
Arthur bless him doesn’t have any shared memories or friends. He didn’t impact any people other than our immediate family but he is still special to us. We still fight to try to get answers for his condition, in the hope that research might help others out there too. In time we will probably fundraise for charity for him also so he has a legacy alongside his sister’s. We’ve chosen to focus on our first child for now, as there’s a clearer legacy path for her. In her memory we will focus on helping other babies to have life saving heart surgery either here in the UK at Alder Hey Hospital or overseas in third world countries through a great charity called Healing Little Hearts.
Photos
This blog is full of photos of Violet and that’s great because we have lots of her. She loved having her photo taken too. It is important for us to recognise that just because we can’t share lots of photos of Arthur or share amusing anecdotes about what he was like as a person it doesn’t mean he isn’t thought about or loved by us.
I like to think too that if they were both still alive today that Violet would definitely still be stealing the limelight away from her little brother, as much as humanely possible. She would certainly boss him around so maybe him playing second fiddle is just a symptom of him being second born, whether he is alive or not?
What do you think? Do you feel guilty about spending more time with one child over another? Does one of them hog the limelight over a shyer sibling?
Love, Sarah x