How losing my baby brother changed my life
I’m six years old. I’m at a cottage on a lake. I know I’ve been here before, but then it was with my family. I’m alone with my mother’s friend, at least that’s how I think of her. I remember that her name is Nellie. She tells me I should go swimming; it’s July in southern Ontario and it’s hot out. We walk down to the water. Somehow I decide there are crabs in the shallows. I tell her that I won’t go swimming with those crabs. She tells me I have to swim or take a nap. I am resolute about this and I choose the nap. We go back to the cabin and I go to sleep in a darkened room with two sets of bunk beds, one on each wall.
The next thing I can remember is being back at home. My mother has a new baby. I’m not sure how much time passed between the cottage and my brother arriving, or even if I have the sequence correctly. He’s tiny and I watch her change his diaper and hold him and she’s happy. Sometimes I wake up at night and patter down the stairs from my attic bedroom to find her up with him, sitting in our dining room, feeding him.
I realize now that she was 43 years old when he was born.
I’m still six. I’m at another of my mother’s friend’s house. I’m in a room and it seems to be gloomy outside and in. Maybe it’s just that the curtains are drawn. I’m on a rocking horse. The…
