“vine…-Explored”
by Pan.101
It is often said that out of great suffering and deprivation comes not only bitterness and resentment, but at many times strength and resilience.
My mother was one of six children to whom my maternal grandmother gave birth and who survived. She delivered a total of eight babies. Two died, one being still born and another succumbing within three months of birth due to what my grandmother described as an umbilical cord cut too short and later growing infectious.
A mother of three, I can only imagine what it must be like to lose a child at three months, a being you have begun learn and know. The babies who died were my grandmother’s third and sixth children.
The birth dates of her six surviving children indicate that each had been born constituting a pair of what are called Irish twins, children born within twelve months of each other’s birth.
My mother was the first born of the pair of Irish twins she constituted. Their pair formed the second and middle pair of the three Irish twins to which my grandmother gave birth.
In that the two deceased siblings formed the third and sixth children, I posit that my grandmother gave birth to my mother following the death of the first infant that died. she subsequently delivered her sixth child (second one to die,) after delivering the sister that was my mother’s Irish twin.
The deaths of the two children my grandmother lost surround and encumber the birth and survival of my mother and her Irish twin. More importantly the first death of an infant that my grandmother experienced preceded my mother’s entrance into her life.
I see the entrance of my mother’s life into that of my grandmother’s as bringing both joy and sadness.
She served as hope that life and joy can return after loss and death. And yet I cannot ignore the possibility that she and her life could perhaps have operated as a reminder of all that could have been had my grandmother’s third child had lived.
_______________________________