#Microblog Mondays: Family of four

'How are the three of you doing?' 

'The three of you'; they say it so innocuously.

Or, 'Is this your first?'. An innocent query from a passerby. I stumble, pause for a second too long. Guilt. Sadness. Pride. Uncertainty. Love. So much love. How do you reply?

I have become resigned - after so long spent loudly and furiously grieving - to the fact that people can't won't don't acknowledge or remember our first born. Though to H and I, this is a family of four.

He is there in his sister’s sparkling eyes; in her secret dreaming smiles.

He is there in his parents’ impossible-to-realize determination to let no moment go unnoticed, unappreciated, uncelebrated. We want to stop and savour; to capture everything.

For babies grow so fast, you know. Except when they don’t. He never will.

And yet he is here. We are a family of four, but one of us - a son, a brother - will always be missing.

Written as part of Mel's Microblog Mondays. Check it out here to participate.