“But I miss Rhianna”

There is nothing harder for a parent than watching your child in pain.

There is nothing harder as a parent watching your child in tears.

There is nothing harder as a parent seeing your child in pain and tears and not being able to do anything to help.

Not being able to take away the pain.

Not being able to dry up the tears.

There is nothing harder than when their pain and tears break your own heart.

When the words “I miss Rhianna” are muttered and the tears fall rapidly over your babies face.

The pain they have for missing their sister is breaking them and there is nothing you can do.

There is nothing you can say.

There is nothing that can stop it.

There is nothing that can prevent it.

There is nothing that can prepare it.

Its so hard.

You can’t share memories with them – there aren’t any.

You can’t share moments they shared together – there aren’t any.

You can’t compare their grief the boys have such different versions.

BB remembers my being pregnant, he remembers being excited, he remembers the tears and the crying and the people being around immediately afterwards.

He remembers being told he was a big brother, he remembers all of it.

BB grieves for his little sister, with words so much wiser than his years, he always has. He is quiet. He sees, he hears, he helps more people than he will ever know. He opens barriers without thinking. She is always at the forefront of his mind there is no doubt about it. He is on the same length journey as us. He had his pain at the beginning. He still has the pain as we all do when it hits it hits him hard. But he is amazing at talking about it and works through it well, every single day.

Boo is different. He was never here when Rhianna died. He never experienced the joy of her coming, the pain of loosing her and the pain all around him when it first happened. He is grieving for a big sister, who died before he was born, before he was even thought about. It’s the strangest thing for him to be grieving. I don’t think you can explain it but it is certainly there.

He has always known about her we talk about her most days.

But he is six and emotionally he doesn’t always get it or get how he is really feeling about it.

But he knows she should be here. He knows she isn’t and he misses her. There is no doubt about it.

The pain is raw for him. It is so raw.

Today out of the blue he burst into throbbing tears because he missed her.

He wanted her here.

And there is absolutely nothing you can say or do to make it go away.

There are no answers.

There are no solutions.

And there is nothing that helps.

Nothing helps BB missing his little sister and reliving the pain of being told she had died, living with his mum and dad in tears for months, living with me going to hospital and not coming home with a baby sister.

Nothing can help him when the pain is too much to bare.

Nothing helps Boo when he wants his big sister.

The one he has never had anything to do with the one that died before he was born.

Nothing can take his pain away.

Nothing can stop the tears.

Nothing can help.

Grief doesn’t come with a rule book.

Parenting doesn’t come with a rule book.

When they are combined there are good and seriously bad days.

There are days with laughter and their are days where your heart is smashed into pieces.

I wish I could stop their hurting.

I wish they didn’t have to live with this pain.

I wish they didn’t understand the longing.

I wish they didn’t have a hollowness in their lives.

I wish they had all their siblings around them.

I wish they never had to live with this.

I can’t take any of that away from them.

I can’t solve any of their questions.

I can’t heal their pain.

I can’t bring their sister back.

I can’t make our family ‘normal’

How I wish I could.

How I wish I could stop their tears.

How I wish they never had to experience this!

How I wish she was here!