Hi @LilacIris and all amazing woman here,
I've been thinking about all of this a lot since we first chatted. One thing that you asked really made me ache for you, when you asked if when my parents go, would my sister's memory go with them. I said Oh goodness me, absolutely not and that's still very true.
Thinking more about all of this, what I know of what my parents went through and just my gentle knowledge of a baby before me, I wondered this.
If I could change things and not have the experiences of my parents before my own birth and the existence of this child who I never met, come before me, no photos and only know a name, a heartbreaking story for my parents, would I change things so that none of this happened and instead we were just born as we were.
Not, can I give my parents all three of us, of course that's what I would want for them, but what if I could erase that part of their story so that the first child experience didn't happen.
So in that reality, my parents would not have had to go through what they did and the child who could not live would never have existed.
My answer to that, without hesitation, is no, god no. I'd lose my sister. This is a child I never met, who was born before me, who I have no photos of, only a name, an awareness that my mother carried a child to term who could not survive outside the womb and now after asking my Dad a little bit more as a woman feeling losses myself, a story of a birth. But god no, if she suddenly didn't exist, I'd feel an immense loss. Of my story, the story of my family and my parents, this child who could not live but is real, my sister. I'm upset at the thought of that being taken away. She's part of me.
So, for your children having connections to their sibling and the child's memory and tangible realness now and always, there is a very instinctive closeness. She's my parent's daughter, my sister. If suddenly that was taken away now, I'd feel grief. Not just sadness, actually grief. I don't want to lose her in my, their and our story, that of all the wider family, who all remember.
Of course, if I soothe my young parents going through hell with the pain of such a terrible loss, I would want to take that pain from them. I wouldn't want to do that at the expense of taking the child's existence from them, as she is part of them too.
I know that seems strange, I found it so interesting as I thought more about all of this myself. If I can't give them all three, or even just the first one healthy and give my own little place in the story up which I would do for them, if I literally have to choose between erasing what happened and the little one never existing, or to keep her as best we have her, I choose keep her. She is part of me and she is part of us all.
For anyone suffering from miscarriages, my mother had several between me and my brother. They had me and were thrilled with having a child and family (this was before I started p-ing them off!), but of course, it's another sad thing and was happening a lot. My Dad told me that one day, after a ridiculous number of them, my mother who was pregnant again but they had been through so many miscarriages thatches had become the norm, said to him "I'm bleeding". He said that he was so used to it by then, they both were, that he didn't even move. He just thought sadly, "That's another one gone".
That other one, for reasons no one knows why other than some kind of light just occasionally for once getting through, is now a father himself, after being a joyous, healthy, beautiful little boy.
All this pain, and as I said good god do I know my own, I think it just has to go somewhere. It has to turn into that little bright light, that silver lining, that peace. It just has to.
No idea how on earth mine will because wow, if I thought my parents were drama, I really have managed to get to unimaginable new levels of seriously, what is this pain. But you know what, hope kept me alive for a long time. When I find myself sinking, it's because I'm struggling to hold on to my blessing wherever I can find them and because hope is getting out of my grasp. I don't think there is anything the can be called false hope. Hope is the last thing we have to hold onto, and we must (note to self note to self note to self). Just pure hope for peace and happiness again, in whatever form that takes.
However, in my parents story, there it is. Sister that is part of a fabric of all of us who I take as she is and value deeply, who binds my parents, parents who went on to have their children and become so immersed in this normality that they really became normal, with normal lives.
My mother doesn't speak to me because my losses were too much for her (no sympathy mother!) and she doesn't handle various things well, nothing to do with her own losses, I just get the feeling she is more comfortably pretending I don't exist. My Dad is my hero, but he forgets now and again that maybe I don't need to hear about how freaking amazing my brother's life is compared to my wonderfully crazy catastrophe. It's not deliberate and I don't think he realises I feel that way, it's just that his world has become so happy (which I adore) that the concepts of these pains are very faded. Who knows, I can't figure them all out. As bizarre as it seems, I'm almost happy for them in this. It's not all that lovely or easy for me, but it shows how they have lived on to be so very normal. My mother is as crazy as always, my Dad as generous and pure as always. Isn't that a normal description of family? The am I really related to this chaos and good god can you all hear yourselves/good god Lu is fine just leave her to it. Normal family, not perfect family, I'm the one who sees the light because I have to so I may sound like I'm describing a really beautiful family, but I expect many psychologists would note my own views on hope and gratitude and not quite agree that is all so sunshine:)
It's all how we see things and how we make ourselves see things, because we have to. So regardless of what may have happened, my parents managed to create their own normal family. I'd go for less drama and a few adjustments in my own, but they survived, they have joy in their lives above all else, they did things their way and above all, they are happy.
And so will you all be, I'm the one looking in at things that happened before I was born, to my two young devastated parents. I know the way the story ends. Love and happiness.