4

They told me it would get easier, having multiples. They say time heals all wounds and that life goes on and you get over things and you accept them and they get easier. In some ways that's true. In some aspects it is easier. I get to sleep at night. I'm not constantly changing diapers or feeding an infant who never. stops. crying. But that's not unique to a set of triplets. All mothers endure the same agonies: exhaustion, sleep deprivation, physical and emotional fatigue...

They are so much older now. Their conditions have become "normal". So normal, in fact, that when a physician diagnoses your son with one of the world's rarest gastrointestinal condition it doesn't even phase you. How completely screwed up is that? You don't even blink an eye...

My children are about to be baptized next Sunday. In the process of this experience, there was a discussion about their Catholic names and who their patron Saints would be. It was discovered that all of my children are named after saints. All of their names accurately define their personalities. And I couldn't help but wonder about our dead baby. What was that baby's name? What was their personality? Who would they have been?

It was a silent agony. It was something that I didn't share because at the time I was immersed in the circumstance of keeping the other three alive. The fourth child is something the triplets talk about constantly. I hate that. I wish they wouldn't. It hurts like hell. But then there's this part of me that knows it's incredibly selfish to prevent them from talking about and remembering the fourth member of their group. The four of them, collectively, attached to my body. The four of them heard my heartbeat and knew each other from the very beginning. The four of them experienced this endeavor from the beginning...

But three were born alive, for a reason that I will probably never know. One went to heaven, before ever seeing the light of day, or feeling the sun on their face. One went to heaven before feeling my kisses, or knowing my touch. One went to heaven, possibly so that others could live. Could that one child have been so self sacrificing so as to give their very life up, for the other three?

The triplets function as one. They talk constantly about feeling each other, knowing what they're thinking, and the agony they feel when they are apart. They function with one brain, or soul, or being that I can't relate to and I don't understand. But maybe they function as quads. Maybe there's one aspect of themselves that's in heaven, calling them to Christ and waiting for the four of them to be together. Maybe there's one who prays for them in a realm that I can't see.

I ache for that child. I ache for the remains that I gave birth to when the three were born. I ache that I wasn't strong enough to handle the situation before me, at the time. I ache that I didn't honor that child, or grieve for them adequately. I ache that we didn't give that baby a name...

They say that time heals all wounds. They said this would get easier as the years passed. But I tell you, that in the five years since I gave birth to my four children at once, only three of which had beating hearts, the ache has not disappeared. The guilt I carry is everlasting.

I wish I could have known you, known your quirks, known your face. I wish that our relationship would be deeper than the-four-that-never-were. I wish I would have talked about you and shared about your existence. I wish they wouldn't talk about you and miss you as much as they do. But most of all, I wish that it wasn't necessary for you to go to heaven before the rest of us... I wish we weren't here without you.