We didn’t have a wake after the funeral. I don’t think Mark could have survived it; I certainly wouldn’t have. The idea of wandering round our house, talking to relatives (all of them in tasteful black, except for Aunty Lila who doesn't know what taste is) and serving food. We didn't want to talk, Mark and I.
We wanted silence.
Dad once said that a parent should never have to bury their child. And it’s true; as parents, we expect to be lowered to rest by our children, not the other way around. There’s something fundamentally wrong, looking down at Jamie’s coffin.
Mark is sat next to the grave. I’m watching him from the nearest bench, around me the open space of Mulberry Hill cemetery. The sky is clouded and there’s a wind blowing.
I see Mark dig into his coat pocket and bring out Jamie’s first birthday present; a present he never received. A little red car, carefully painted by Mark, it’s no bigger than the palm of my hand. Perhaps that’s why Jamie was taken from us; we’d already bought his first birthday present before our little bundle was born.
Sod’s law.
I believed in that more than I did God. Couples often find religion after such a tragedy as ours. They want to think their baby is happy up in heaven, getting his own pair of cherub wings (I personally find cherubs ugly). I can’t understand why a God, loving and caring as he is portrayed, would take an innocent child’s life. It makes no sense.
Mark fingers the car like a talisman. I don’t stop him. This is his way of dealing with the grief. I’m sure there’s tears running down his face but he has his back to me. It’s an unconscious signal that he wants to be alone.
For now, I allow him to grieve on his own.
I turn my eyes to the sky, watch a bird lazily glide along, consider the clouds, notice a tiny ray of sun clawing its way through. I’m crying. I don’t care, that’s fine. Jamie is dead; it’s normal to cry.
Will this get any easier to bear? Eventually, I suppose. But it’ll never stop hurting.
And that’s ok. I don’t want to forget my first child.