Redheaded Jill

** Trigger warning: death, miscarriage **

The days that followed my parents’ return from the hospital where they delivered my stillborn baby sister were hard. I went to school the next day and was fine. Or so I thought. I had PE first hour. I walked down the stairs to the locker room and was met by some friends coming up the stairs. They all knew I was expecting a baby sister and was so excited.

At the top of the stairs I burst into tears. I was sobbing and unable to talk. I finally told my friends the bad news. They comforted me and hugged me and walked with me to the auditorium for some type of assembly. I remember our teaching looking at us like we were crazy. I was all splotchy from crying and my friends were patting my back and holding my hands. The adults probably thought it was just hormones or something.

My mom got a birth certificate from the hospital and some other baby things. I wondered if we’d have a funeral for my sister. We didn’t. Unlike the other miscarriage I remember, this one felt more real to me. We knew the baby’s gender, we knew her name, we had bought her clothes, she was so loved and so anticipated.

I would look through my mom’s baby box. I took the birth certificate to my room and put it in a frame. I wanted to remember my sister. I wanted to talk about my sister. I wanted to grieve my sister. My mom asked for the birth certificate back. She let me make a photocopy of it and put it in my room. I didn’t understand. I wanted to display it! My mom was keeping it in a box! I thought I somehow deserved the birth certificate.

Because I didn’t witness, or at least didn’t realize I was witnessing my parents’ in their own grief I thought I was the only one who held on to the sadness. I would come downstairs at night and sit in the living room and cry in the dark. I would hold something that was meant for the baby and I’d cry. I needed someone to talk to me about it but I didn’t know how to ask. I did this every night for a week.

Finally one night my dad came out and confronted me about it. He asked why I was crying. I didn’t know how to say, “I’m sad, I need a hug, I need to talk about her.” So I lied. I said, “The kids at school are making fun of me for having such a big family.” That wasn’t true. At least, nobody made fun of me to my face. Why did I lie? I have no idea why. Because my dad couldn’t read my mind I said the first thing that popped into my head. Being bullied by kids at school seemed logical. That would garner me sympathy, right?

My dad told me to go to bed. I imagine he was tired and dealing with his own sadness and being a support for my mom. But as I said before, my 12 year old brain didn’t comprehend this.

As I age and as I go through therapy and try to find out why I am the way that I am I have more and more memories like this one. Of course I never forgot my sister. I didn’t need therapy to remind me of these events. But I never unpacked it with anyone until recently. The things we experienced as kids shape us as adults. The sadness we feel over loss doesn’t disappear just because we age. Time does not heal all wounds, but it can ease the pain.