When 27 Candles Come

At Easter, my daughter made a toast to her guests saying how grateful she was to have them in her home. She said that her wish this year was to spend more time with those she loved as she reached her 27^th birthday; the birthday her brother didn’t get to.  And that hit me.

I was told that when younger children approach the age of the sibling who died, there comes with it an irrational fear; a sense of lightning could strike twice in the same place. And from too many accounts of my fellow grief warriors, the answer is it does. My daughter is now the exact same number of days away from her 27^th that Zane was from his when he was killed. And although we have this daily ritual since that fateful day, of her texting me to assure me she got to work safe, got home safe, this week my thoughts live in a dark encompassing fear of ‘what if’.

I did not think I would feel this way.  My soul knows that my daughter has a different destiny than her brother. She is a different child than he. But what does that matter? This does not reduce the anxiety. As we approach her birthday, each day I fret a bit more. I need to take deep breaths more.  I wake up in cold sweats. I am a mess to which there seems to be no distraction.

I try to rationalize with this paralyzing emotion in me. I tell myself, she will make it, and we will celebrate her and if my heart knows this than I must focus on just this.  I think back to when I was planning Zane’s 27^th.  I had the perfect gift, a day with an award-winning photographer to take him into the Banff Basins to shoot pictures. Zane had suggested that we start his day with brunch, just the two of us.  He commented on feeling excited about this birthday and the future it would bring him. There it is.

It is not so much that something will happen to Payton. Although we know too well tragedy can happen to anyone at any time. It is that Payton will be the age Zane wanted to reach. This day, her 27^th will be overshadowed with all the plans and all the hopes and the dreams that we had for Zane, shortly before his fate was sealed on that early morning highway.  Her 27^th birthday should be her own day of celebration and yet it will not be.  Intuitively, she is preparing herself to feel the pain of having her older brother not at THIS birthday. She knows this one should have been his to celebrate years before her.

Part of the agony I feel as her mother is knowing that I can’t bring her brother back.  We can’t celebrate her birthdays with her older brother. We are travelling into unknown territory again; there is nothing she can compare her upcoming experiences to…”when Zane was ‘my’ age”.  She is now the age he will never be.

Fear is a primary emotion connected to loss. That is all this is. It is not all about her reaching the birthday that Zane did not. It is the loss of turning 27, an age that will not bring with it the past comfort and experiences her older brother guided her with. And for me, the fear I am experiencing is not of the unknown dangers of life. What I am feeling is the loss of Zane replayed so very loudly with this menacing 27^th that did not happen for him.  This birthday emphasizes our loss. Simple. And yet, so very complicated.