Cousins
This photo is from a family visit with Emmett and Hannah, two of Lorenzo's cousins at Carter Mountain apple orchard this fall. After we snapped this photo, as I turned and began to walk hand in hand with Lorenzo to another part of the orchard, Hannah (who is 3 going on 30) ran up to me and grabbed my other hand. For a split second, I thought she was Isla. I had this really profound feeling of being complete, of spending an autumn afternoon picking apples with my kids, feeling their warm, sticky hands clinging to mine as they skipped along, giddy with excitement and sugared up with cider doughnuts. The moment passed, I realized Hannah was next to me and I immediately teared up and scooped her up for a hug. Like so many mom hugs, the act meant the world to me - I missed my girl, I cherished the opportunity to have her adorable and fiery cousin in my life, I wished they could have been here together, I was happy for the fleeting glimpse of what life may have been like, I was crushed that the reality was that my glimpse was a fantasy. Also like so many mom hugs, Hannah let me shower all the feelings on her for about two seconds before she squirmed away - but it was a really special moment that I'll never forget.
When Isla was born, she had three cousins: then-four-year-old twins Ava & Finn (technically aunt and uncle, but happily fill the role of cousins) and then-one-year old Emmett. The four cousins never had a chance to meet. One of my warmest memories is of holding Emmett when he came with his parents (Dan's sister and brother-in-law) to Texas for Isla's funeral. Emmett borrowed and slept in Isla's pack in play in his parents' hotel room, and I imagined him snuggled up in the same spot his baby cousin inhabited just weeks earlier. It was a heartbreaking but healing image.
Since Isla died, our extended family has grown again with the addition of Emmett's sister Hannah (born in March 2014) and of course Lorenzo (born April 2015). Emmett, Hannah and Lorenzo are great pals, and they see each other often. Having grown up as an Army brat, I was accustomed with an independent nuclear family moving around every few years. We had a couple of distant cousins that we visited a handful of times throughout my youth, visits that to me always felt awkward and obligatory since us kids never really spent time together. So, in the age-old tradition of wanting your kids to have what you missed out on, I'm determined for mine to get a great cousin experience.
I always think about birth order when I see the Emmett, Hannah, and Lorenzo together. Isla would be right between Emmett and Hannah in age, one cousin for each 4 years. I am always aware of this gap and find myself wondering how Isla's presence would change the dynamic. Would the boys run off together and the girls pair up for their own mischief? Would Emmet and Isla extricate themselves as the "big kids"? At bigger family gatherings with Ava and Finn - where would Isla fit in? Would she do yoga poses with Ava and me? Where would she be in the train of shrieking kids snaking their way through Granddad's house amid discarded Christmas wrapping paper? Whose hand would she grab and stand next to for the multiple attempts the grown-ups always make for the Official Kids Photo? Would she abscond with Emmett to sneak cheese and cookies and pie until their stomachs hurt? Or would she be in rapture listening to Finn's imaginative accounts of his day? Would she and Hannah share clothes the way Emmett and Lorenzo do? (Probably - definitely!)
Every holiday, every regular day - Isla is with us in spirit, but as the other kids grow up, it becomes harder and harder to imagine where and how she would fit in. I grieve for the missed opportunity for her to enjoy this cousin life and grow up in this amazing extended family. I grieve for not knowing what she would have been like as a toddler, a preschooler, a child. I struggle to explain Isla to Lorenzo, who knows in theory that she is his big sister, that she came out of the smile-shaped scar on mama's belly, and who resides, inexplicably, in an omnipresent metal heart-shaped container. I can sense the inconsistencies that, although for now are accepted as fact in his 2-year-old mind, will eventually bubble into thoughts and questions: Isla is a baby, how can she be my big sister? Where did she go? Is she coming back? Is she real? How is she in this box and in that picture? Does she know about me? Does she even care?
And I won't know how to answer - because the same questions are mine.
