Grief

Recently I discovered the sad news that one of Elin's little classmates had passed away before Easter. She was a beautiful girl who, it appeared to me whenever I was in her presence, seemed to emit a kind of calm and gentle aura. Her wonderfully pretty, saucer like eyes sucked you into her world and made you not want to tear your own eyes away from her unassuming, lovely gaze. I had spoken to her mother at the party of a fellow classmate once. We had the conversation that I have with so many parents, just discussing day to day cares, medical history, the impact of disability on the rest of the family, that sort of thing (the family have an elder daughter too). She was an ordinary Mum like me who had been dragged into this confusing and difficult world and was doing everything she could to ensure her daughters had happy and fulfilling lives. Just like every other Mum at Elin's school is wont to do, I would imagine. But now she has lost one of her two girls. The grief of this hits me like a freight train. I don't mean to sound self indulgent- what right have I to be upset? I still have my daughter. But it's the knowledge of absolutely everything that family have been through during their little girls seven short years on this earth. I hardly know them. But I know everything they have been through because we have been through it, too. The fights for help for her, the hospital stays, the worry, the equipment, the medication, the home adaptions you never believed you'd have to have, the blessing of every birthday, the sorrow of what could have been. I know this Mum, I know how she has felt and who she is. Because I am her, too. And how can I fail to grieve for this family and this beautiful girl with her eyes like perfect pools of water? Because I am her Mum, and she is Elin. And in the realms of 'our world', in the family of parents we have become, bound by sorrow and despair and great joy that no 'ordinary' parent could ever understand, we are all one person, one child, one family. We will never forget you beautiful girl and the family you leave behind. I hope that, wherever you are those beautiful eyes are seeing a world you could not grasp in life and that you sing and dance and play as you always so richly deserved. God bless.