Selfish Grief.

Yep, that pretty much sums it up. I have always been so intoxicated with my own grief that apart from Paul, I have never really thought about others around me and sadly,the one who I have completely overlooked is my own son.

We said our last goodbyes to Isaac about 2pm on the 10th of December, 11 years ago today. We asked for the midwives to wheel him away as we were just about to face the task of having to tell our boy, the events that had happened in the past 24 hours. We were really nervous about this. We had dropped him off to his grandparents house at 4am and he was told as he was dropped to school that he would see us that afternoon. Nothing was said to him about mummy's tummy, nor was a word spoken about our baby.

He was only 7.

When he arrived in our room, he was amazing, he had more strength than Paul and I put together and he was in awe of the story that was told to him about his baby brother, about the wee little babe that he had longed for forever.

We showed him his clothes, and items the midwives had given us. He touched them and smelt them and then rather innocently, he just asked if he could see him.

WOW, that really threw us, we had made the decision for him not to, but how could we possibly deny him?

We asked for the nurses to bring him back in, he was wheeled back over to me in his crib, still wrapped up warmly in the blankets we had given him.

I gently handed him to TJ, he was ever so gentle and was very careful of holding his head correctly. He was amazed that he was so perfect, that he was just a miniature version of himself! He asked if he could remove his clothes and redress him in something else. Again, we couldn't deny him such quality time with his brother.

The sadness was in his eyes but you could also see the happiness creeping through, at last, at long last he had a brother, this time however, it would be a special one, one that would walk alongside him in spirit. Watching him say goodbye was heartbreaking and I can still remember it so clearly now in my mind.

TJ relayed some special words to us a couple of days later, we wrote them down, he wanted to say them at the funeral, he wanted everyone to know how he was feeling, again, we could not deny it.

Fast forward to last night, he made comment that he could have Friday off work if he wanted to for family reasons, I passed it off and said he should never use his brother as an excuse to get a day off work. What happened next astounded me.

He said that I didn't know what it was like, that he was there too and that he was his brother and he constantly thinks about him. He also said that if someone pissed him off at work he didn't know what he would say or do. :(

I changed the subject but thought about it some more, he was right, so very right and yet I had never really asked him how he was feeling, not once and now I am ashamed of that. Every year, I have talked to all the children's teachers at the beginning of term to let them know about the kids other brother. I do this in the hope that if they do bring him up in conversation one day that the teacher will be understanding of the situation. I never thought hat TJ would ever have had to tell his employer but now I told him that in the morning he was to do so.

I received a call from him about 7:30 this morning. He was sobbing uncontrollably, I felt so terrible sorry and extremely bad. He had told his boss but broke down during the conversation, he in turn had told him to head home and to be with us. He did so and spent the day with me.

I cant believe that all these years I have been so selfish, that I have not once considered what he is going through, that its been all about me. I feel blessed to have a son who is so passionate about his brother and to be open and honest about his feelings.

It's something I will most certainly not push aside from now on.