Last night, Cyndi and I were talking about brothers and sisters with our friend, Masume. Masume is from Japan. She has a younger sister, who is moving from Japan to Michigan in a few months. Masume is very close with her sister. They speak almost every day on the phone. They are going to save a ton of money very soon. Masume's husband, Shinya, has a younger brother. I've not heard much about him.
One of the things we talked about is how similar our family situations are. Masume and her husband each have one younger sibling. Cyndi has two older sisters, and I have two older brothers. And then it dawned on me: I have a sister.
It's not that I forget I have a sister, when asked about my siblings. It's just that she was born and, sadly, passed away before me. Her name was Michelle. More specifically, her name was Michelle Diane Fosco. When I was a kid, my parents told me about her death. For the longest time, I had thought that Michelle died from pneumonia. It was probably easier to explain to a child this way. Years later, I learned the truth. Michelle died from SIDS.
I've never asked my brothers if they remember our sister. We've never opened the wound to expose the feelings underneath the pain. I cannot forget, however, that they have lost a sister. It may affect their lives in ways no one knows, including themselves.
My mother, on the other hand, relives the pain daily. Growing up, I never understood this. It was selfish of me, but it's true. I resented the fact that she grieved my sister. I was alive, I seem to remember feeling, why wasn't I good enough. That's not how I feel now. I'm not certain I consciously thought or felt that, but it seems plausible. I didn't understand the pain that comes with losing a loved one, a child no less, and it just seemed incomprehensible to me.
Until I became a parent myself.
I've often played the "what if" game in my head. What if Michelle didn't die? What would our lives have been like? It may have softened our house. It would have given my mother that female ally amongst men (even the dog was a male) she always craved. It would have better prepared the boys for lives, as adults, with a member of the opposite sex. I could have watched a young girl grow up into a beautiful woman. I could have been the protective younger brother. I could have been the protected younger brother; spoiled by the doting older sister. I could have snuck into her room to read her secret thoughts in her hidden diary. I could have been a shoulder to cry on when her first boyfriend--the love of her life--broke her heart. I could have watched, with envy, the way she entered a room, dressed for the senior prom. I could have been a groomsman in her wedding, and she a bridesmaid in mine. She could have named her first child after me (wishful thinking, of course). She could have held my hand when I was scared.
This is what we talked about yesterday with Masume. How my life may have been different if my sister was never an afterthought for me. And I don't want that to seem mean. It's just that when people ask me about my siblings, I always unconsciously reply, "I have two older brothers." I shouldn't, but I do.
I've lived by the motto that in life, things happen for a reason. I'm not convinced that the reason Michelle was born was to inflict a lifetime of sadness on my mother.
"However," Cyndi pointed out yesterday, "if things were different, you may have never been born." I've never, ever, thought about it like that before. I've inflicted pain and sadness on my mother occasionally throughout my life. Make me stop and think about the whole situation like Cyndi did; I feel trivial.
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