I cried today over Aurelia's short life for the first time in literal years.
I was very happy this morning. So happy that I sought out a happy playlist on Apple Music and was rocking and drumming on the steering wheel.
Then my mind drifted through some mechanism that I can't understand to something Chiron said the other day. I refer to Trajan as "beloved firstborn" reasonably often and so on occasion I call the others the same with their number. So Chiron is "beloved thirdborn." The other night he asked couldn't I just call him "beloved secondborn that didn't die."
I persuaded him that that was unnecessarily long and so we are sticking with thirdborn, but I just couldn't. Because he is my thirdborn. She was born at 08:15 CST to his 08:16 CST. And she was. She was not just some medical waste that was removed from my body to allow access to his fragile body, she was an entity.
But I had another realization. While I did cry thinking about this this morning, they weren't tears of sadness exactly. They were more tears of truth if that makes any sense. And appreciating this opportunity that my brain decided to give me to remember her life and her existence.
One last thought. I know that no one else really knew her as a distinct entity. She moved within me and I could tell her from Chiron. For everyone else she was either a part of my body or a corpse. But Chiron did know her. I saw enough ultrasounds of the two of them to know that they interacted. And thanks to science we know that she will continue to impact him for the rest of his life. He was subject to different hormones as a fetus because she was.
This is actually one aspect of her life that I didn't think about until this morning. Epigenetics and environment mean that part of who Chiron is are because Aurelia was. She isn't just a figment of my imagination, she remains a gossamer filter shading my beloved thirdborn.
A diaphanous overlay. ADO. Either fuss about something unimportant or adieu. Either way, I think the quality of my continued happiness the morning continues enhanced because she was. My beloved secondborn.
Liz, I came back to your blog to send it to two mothers of 2 sets of twins, each of whom lost one of their first. And then I saw this. Aurelia very much exists to me. She always will, just as all your kids did before I had the better pleasure of meeting your survivors.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, J, M and I talk frequently about who sharing a womb led to who they are, that they are imprinted on each beyond just shared DNA and experiences.