A Year of Blogging: May 13, 2011

May 13 is one of the 'special' days in my family. I'm not sure special is the right word. Sad? May 13 is my sister's birthday. My older sister. My parents had a daughter 13 months before I was born. Mom was very sick during the pregnancy with toxemia. When Mom went to the hospital, the doctor came out of the delivery room and told my dad they were going to lose the baby, and he might lose my mom. Men didn't go into the delivery room in 1975 like they do now. My parents had only been married a few months. My dad was 21 years old. Dad says he 'almost socked' the doctor. Which is Dad talk for punching him out. The way the story has been told, the doctor came out, delivered this heart-breaking news coldly, and then disappeared back into the delivery room. Mom and Dad said he had no bedside manner. Dad was left in the hallway, facing the possibility that he was going to lose his child and his wife. I cannot imagine how hard that had to have been for him. When my sister Laura was born in 1978, the same doctor was on call when Mom arrived at the hospital after midnight. (There were several doctors in the practice Mom went to). When Dad found out it was the same doctor, Dad told Mom that he didn't care what she had to do, she could not deliver the baby until this doctor went off shift. He went off at 7am, Laura was born shortly after. My older sister was stillborn. She was not baptized, at least I don't think so. They didn't name her. Her headstone says 'Stillborn daughter of Mark & Kathy'. We once asked my parents what they would have named her, and Mom said Jennifer. So they would have had all three daughters with some of the most popular names of the decade. Mom said the doctors told her the baby had a severe form of Down Syndrome, and would have had to been institutionalized her whole life. They said she probably wouldn't have lived to adulthood. Mom and Dad accepted this loss as God's way. Yes, they grieved. They still grieve. But Mom once told us that God must have thought having a child who couldn't live with them, and would need so much care, would have been too much for Mom & Dad; and that's why God took her back to Heaven. Dad's parents already had a cemetery plot, for Dad's two sisters who died as infants. They offered the plot to my parents, and my sister was buried next to her two aunts. Mom said they searched for months for a headstone, and finally, while in Vermont they found it. It is white marble, with a carved lamb on the top of the stone. It is unique, and has gotten a lot of compliments over the years. I know that sounds weird. The cemetery association once told my folks they could never move that stone, because it has become one of the focal points of the cemetery. I have always known about my older sister. It was never a secret. We went to her grave in May to put an arrangement on her stone for her birthday, and we went in December to put one on for Christmas. For years, at Christmas, the florist made an evergreen blanket and we put that over the grave. My parents have always considered that they had three daughters. I know, on May 13, they are back in that hospital, the terrified newlyweds. When someone asks 'which child are you?' I never know how to answer. My sister, Laura, is the baby. That doesn't change. But I'm either the oldest child or the middle child. Technically, I'm the middle child, as I am the second of three. But I'm the oldest living child. If I answer 'I'm the oldest', I always feel that I have to put a disclaimer with it 'well, the oldest living child'. My standard response is usually 'I'm older than Laura'. It's the truth, and seems to answer people's question. Last month, Mom told Sydney about her Mommy's other sister. Grandma is buried in the same plot that the three babies are in, and Mom knew it would come up. Mom said last week, when they had the graveside service for Grandma, Sydney took a couple of flowers and put them on her mommy's sister's grave. It will be years before she completely understands what happened to Mommy's other sister, but we did tell Sydney that she has an aunt who is an angel in heaven. May 13 isn't a day we commemorate with a party. We don't circle it on the calendar or write anything on that day. We mark it quietly, in our hearts.