Playing favourites

Within our family, there have always been fairly well-acknowledged 'favourites', special relationships between various members that just don't exist for others. I don't know if we are particularly unusual in this regard, it isn't something that I've discussed with many other people in real life for fear of opening a can of worms, somewhere along the lines of 'My parents never loved me, sob sob, they always loved my brother, Jim, more. I've been scarred for life . . . . '

I know, for instance, that I am not my father's favourite child. My younger sister is. I don't find this particularly upsetting, perhaps because it has always been out in the open. I know it. She knows it. My father will neither confirm or deny it but his refusal to say anything (when confronted about his supposed favouritism) along the lines of, "Pish, I love you both just the same" leads me to believe that my sister is, in fact, his favourite. And I can see his point of view, my sister is less neurotic, more athletic, taller, prettier and generally an improvement on me. If I were my father, I'm sure she'd be my favourite too.

My sister occasionally tries to make this up to me by claiming, hollowly, that I am our mother's favourite child. But we both know that this, although kindly intentioned, is laughable. I think our mother likes us both equally, I'm fairly sure my sister actually thinks the same. She's just trying to redress the balance.

My grandmother made no bones about the fact that she favoured the eldest child in each family, as she was the eldest child herself. But within this hierarchy of favourites, the 'eldest eldest', the first grandchild, ruled supreme. 

Amongst the grandchildren, it is recognised that some of us have so-called 'shining hero' status and, no matter how obnoxiously we behave or how badly we mess up, we will be excused if we are one of the 'special' ones. This operates separately from birth order and appears to be allocated at random. Just bad luck if you aren't selected. Thus cousin E complains about cousin J, "Hrumph, he can never do ANYTHING wrong JUST because HE. IS. J. Everyone in the family will always stick up for him simply because you all think he's SO great. No matter the evidence to the contrary."

But none of us are dead. I have no experience of this sort of interplay in a family where one of the siblings, or cousins, or grandchildren, is dead. Georgina is, in fact, the only infant death to have occurred in this, and the previous, generation. 

I do sometimes wonder what it will be like for Jessica and Reuben to grow up knowing that they had a sister who died. That, where there are two, there might be three. 

Perhaps they will take after their father and just won't be 'reflecting on what might have been' kind of people. 

Because I am someone who likes to conjure up problems that don't currently exist a good decade or so in advance, I have already had hypothetical fights with a teenage Jessica. These proceed along the usual lines (I hate you, I never asked to be born, but I WANT to stay out until 3 am, date this undesirable boy, drink three litres of cider) until the denouement of, "I bet you wish I had died instead of Georgina. I bet you wish that she was still alive and I was dead so you'd have your perfect daughter who you think is SO great." 

And yes, I do like to trouble trouble LONG before trouble troubles me. 

My relationship with all my children is, at the centre, the same. I love them. They head butt me, ignore me, vomit on me or they pull the ultimate act of defiance and die on me thus removing themselves from my sphere of influence forever. Still I love them.

It is hard not to imagine Georgina as something otherwordly. Sometimes I lose sight of the fact that she would have been a real, honest to goodness, human child had she survived. Burping. Filling up nappies. Saying "no, no, no, no", when asked if she loves me (Jessica's latest wheeze). 

As time passes, Georgina has become something purer. A spirit, a thin little ghost girl, ageless, wise, pure. Barely touching the earth. I feel the need to defend her, to keep mentioning her, just because nobody else will. 

Will her brother and sister think I love her more? 

That Georgina is, somehow, my favourite? 

Because she is dead? 

And, Reuben, whose birth was so far away from the absolute bomb shell of his older sisters'? Their birth feels like the epicentre of an earthquake. I watched Jessica hover between life and death for weeks at a time, so defenceless. During those early days it felt like I was walking into hell, every time I walked into that NICU. Every single day, I woke up and I had to walk back in again. To Jessica and her sister. And then just to Jessica. 

That experience did something to me. I will never, ever be the person that I was. Not ever again. And the girls were right there, with me, in the midst of it. 

My love for the twins has a desperate and despairing edge to it that my love for Reuben does not. Not more. Not less. Just different. My love for him in the immediate aftermath of his birth had a contentment and a peace that would have been inconceivable with the girls. How will he feel? Sharing the spotlight with a bona fide medical miracle? 

As my sister in law said, "Everyone thinks their children are special. But Jessica really is special."

She is. It is hard to reconcile that with a living, breathing, nearly three year old who can occasionally drive me to absolute distraction. Sometimes, mid telling off, I see that tiny, baby again. I hear the ventilator wheeze and the alarms beep. And a voice whispers in my ear, "She nearly died you know. How can you not let her soak her baby brother with the watering can / eat gravel / kick you in the shin / throw her toast on the floor?"

But Georgina is special. Reuben too.

They are all equally special to me. Although nobody will ever be shocked or amazed by the story of the beginning of Reuben's life. Or the beginning and end of Georgina's. Events took expected turns.

I don't think that there will be any favourites in this family. I hope they won't feel that there is.

I love them. My dear, dear three. 

And I can't imagine loving one any more than the others.