Those that have met my immediate family would say that we are close, and it is true, we are. My parents were blessed with five biological children and fostered five more but what few people know is that my parents had another baby that no one has ever met. As children in school we were frequently asked to draw family portraits. I always enjoyed this activity because everyone else might have a brother or sister, dog or cat, mom and dad, maybe even a step mom and dad, but I was always the only one in the classroom with an angel.
On April 27th, 1985 my parents were joined in holy matrimony. A few months later they became pregnant and on April 19th, 1986 they were blessed with their first born. She weighed six pounds some odd ounces and was two months early. When she was born my family went to the moon and back. My parents (whose courtship was long and tedious for all parties) finally had a child of their own and my maternal grandparents had their first grandchild. My paternal grandparents had other grandchildren but this was the first by their youngest son and they were very happy too. Sadly the precious gift that God had given them was not theirs to keep.
With a sorrowful face the doctor who helped bring her into this world sadly informed my parents that she was no long to be in it. An early term illness that my mother had acquired visiting relatives had damaged the baby's heart and the decree was that she would not live long enough to take her home. Pausing only long enough for the terrible news to sink in, my Father asked for her to be baptized. The on hand nurse had already looked at the charts and had seen that my parents were Catholic. Without pausing she did an emergency baptism then and there. She was named for my parents favorite saint, Jean Marie Vianney. My Father, unknowing what the nurse had done, did an emergency baptism as well. My great uncle, Father Barnabas, arrived shortly after that and baptised her as well. Now, I know that only the first baptism counts, but just in case one of them did not count, we are quite certain that at least one must have worked.
A few short hours later Jeanne Marie, not meant for this world, passed from my parents arms into God's. This concludes the tragically short, but very exciting life of my only big sister. I have to add what happened next or my Mother will kill me for leaving out the happy ending. The doctor who delivered Jeanne Marie told my parents that they would never give birth to a child who would live. Not a year later he went on to deliver a healthy baby boy, my brother Danny. A year and half later I was born with the same doctor. After that he retired and my Mother went on to have John-Paul, Robert, and Elizabeth. I have often wondered, and then wanted, to meet that doctor and ask how it feels to be to be so wrong?
My mother says that without sorrow one cannot experience true joy and that losing Jeanne Marie made her love all of us so much more. So every April 19th my Father tries to do something nice for all of us. As happy as he is with all of us, he still writes letters to my first sister. When my younger sister was ten, he read us a letter he had written to Jeanne Marie a month after we found out my Mother was pregnant with Elizabeth. He told her that he thinks of her often, especially in the Spring, and that even though he loves the rest of us, she will always be his first child, his first love. He wrote that he knows she is in heaven and watching down on us and looking out for all of us from up there. He asked her for another girl because he felt that his first child had been a little girl, so maybe his last should be as well. I wrote a song about it once (my Dad hated it) but somehow I know that she likes it.
You would think that my Mother would be sad too but she never shows it. Every year on April 19th she does, well, she does what she does every day of the year. She loves us unconditionally and tells us that she is proud of us. Sometimes, when we get sad, she tells us about the sister that we never had the privilege of meeting, but to hear her tell it, the story is an adventure and it always end with the joy of God's plan. She does not call it Jeanne Marie's birthday, but rather her feast day. She tells us that this is the day we remember that one of children has already made it to heaven and that we have a patron saint who is watching out for us. Some day I hope to meet my sister, but not for a very long time. Maybe someday, if I ever have children, I will understand how difficult it was for my parents, but for now I raise a glass to her twenty-fifth feast and instead choose to celebrate life.
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