Come Play

“Come play, Miles”, she said, looking up at the sweet, smiling face of his picture on the wall.

It was the first time she’s been able to verbalize wanting her brother, and it broke my heart. I know that she’ll continue to express this yearning in many ways in the years to come, and I don’t know how I’m going to help her navigate it. How can I explain to her that a boy she never knew made us parents? That a boy she never knew changed our worlds forever? That we lived a lifetime of sweet memories in one short year with a brother she’ll never get to see?

I watch her playing alone often and daydream about how different things would be if Miles was still here. I wonder how their bond would already be forming, and how they would giggle, hug, and torment one another. I imagine he would be an incredibly patient older brother- his calm, even personality balancing out her fiery, fiesty one. I’m sure he’d have his moments- that she would sometimes get on his nerves, or ruin something he built, or that he’d get jealous of the attention his baby sister gets- but I know he would have adored her.

She’s growing up without him, surrounded only by pictures and stories of a short life she may never fully relate to. I desperately hope that she doesn’t ever resent the place he holds in our family. Doesn’t grow tired of hearing about the year we spent with him, or of seeing his smiling face in photos, or of the lines of worry on our faces that appear when we fear losing her, too. I hope she wants to know more- that she asks about him, and wonders about him, and misses him. But how can she miss someone she never knew? How can we foster in her a deep love for a brother she never got to see?

I think that, as is often the way with children, we’ll just have to take her lead. When she asks, we’ll tell. When she is quiet, we’ll hold space. Because this love for him- this precious, all-consuming, never-ending love, is a gift. It’s one I want her to share in, and never feel forced into. Standing back and allowing her to feel this love in her own time and in her own way will be difficult, but I’m hopeful that it will be rewarding. To see a bond grow between them, even without him physically here, is all I can hope for. I’ll never hold my two children together, and this fact ruins me. But hearing her ask for him at not even two years old makes me believe I’ll get to see a different kind of love- one we’ll all spend a lifetime discovering.