Those who have been along this journey know that it has been an incredible blessing and also heart-wrenching to be along this ride with Ronen’s siblings, as they try to figure out what it means to have, as they would most directly say, “a brother who’s dead.”
I had been curious about where N, who is two years younger than Ronen would have been, would be in this story. What would she know about him? What connection will she feel to him? She is certainly figuring it out at her own.
From her tiniest years, N has seen pictures of Ronen around our house, first becoming aware that they were not pictures of her (though they did very much look alike), and then learning that he was her baby brother, recognizing Ronen with his “pipes” (a term she introduced on her own, even though D and J also called them “pipes” when Ronen was in the hospital, curiously).
Since beginning preschool 1.5 years ago, many of N’s friends have become older siblings. “But when is my baby coming home??” she would ask. And she’d tell me, “When my baby comes home, I will sit very carefully and I will hold him and snuggle and give him kisses.” And I’d gently remind her that Ronen is not coming home, that he used to be our baby but that he was born before her, N repeating every statement back as a question, every conversation ending in a soft but firm, “He died,” to her last question, “He died?” and my answer, “Yes, he died,” before she seems satisfied and moves onto the next subject.
Conventional wisdom says that kids don’t, or can’t, understand death, but thanatologist Alyssa Drescher teaches that actually, one of the first abstract concepts our children learn is “all done.” Then again, if a child is “all done” at the breakfast table, that really means all done for now. They understand while this is the end of breakfast today, they can still expect that we will feed them next time they are hungry.
All of this has been a long prologue to yesterday’s happening.
I had told N that on our way to visit her grandmother in Boston for winter break, we'd visit Ronen in New Jersey (at the cemetery).
Gasp. "I'm going to get to meet my baby!"
Abstract concepts are still hard for kiddos. Sigh. I remind her, as always, that we are not going to meet him, and he's not coming home, because he died.
As we arrive at the cemetery, I open the car door behind my seat and go to unbuckle her carseat with a smile. "We're here," I say.
N looks around. "But this is not the hospital. But... where's my baby?" "No, N," I sigh. "We're at the cemetery. This is where Ronen is buried."
Her eyes widen. "Buried??" she balks. "In the ground??"
"Yes," I reply. "We bury people in the ground after they have died."
As I breathe for a moment, she surveys the area around her. "But it's cold. And snowy."
She finally wriggles free from the seatbelt, and I get her in her puffer jacket and wrap her in a warm, fuzzy blanket with a bear hood. "Let me show you," I whisper as I pick her up, and she burrows deep into my shoulder, hiding her face for protection from the eighteen-degree chill, or from her fear. Probably both.
We walk over to Ronen's grave, where Bob is already talking to D and J.
I show N where it says Ronen's name, and point out the R that starts it. I show her the bear on the top left, telling her that it reminds us of the bear at Ronen's hospital. She peeks out of her blanket, still silent, but absorbing.
I tell N that the music on top of Ronen's grave is "Twinkle, Twinkle," and while I sing I point to each note on the gravestone, stopping abruptly at "How I--," which is where it purposely ends, to represent that Ronen's life was abruptly interrupted, and still dominant.
Next day, I hear her talking to herself as she comes downstairs to the basement at her grandmother's house, "We need to go downstairs to be under the ground where Ronen can't find us." I don't know what she is imagining now, but I know she is processing. She will ask me questions when she is ready.
There is a theory that children who grow up with grief experience "Regrieving," which is the idea that the more children understand about their losses, they will need to grieve the loss again with their new information and context. Regrieving is an extension of what is called the Continuing Bonds Theory, posited by Klass, Silverman, and Nickman in 1996. Continuing Bonds is the idea that it is normal for grievers to continue bonding with their loved one even after death. Certainly the bond that my subsequent child experiences with her not-present brother represents a most obvious proof of this theory. It seems obvious to me, though, that regrieving is not just for children; even adult grievers, as our lives and families expand, as we encounter and develop new parts of ourselves, we regrieve the losses that now have new meaning for us, too.
Here also is where theory meets reality: The three-year-old in the graveyard, snuggled in her bear blanket in the arms of her mother, who was bereaved before she was born. As we leave the cemetery, she wonders if he will be warm under the blanket of snow. Maybe she's becoming aware that her dream of sitting carefully and holding her baby and snuggling and giving him kisses will never happen. We have had to come to grips with that, too, and sometimes the emptiness echoes more than others. I am grateful that your warm snuggles, N, sometimes fill the emptiness for me too.
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