Gabrielle's birthday

 Last Wednesday the 18^th August was Gabrielle’s birthday.  She was born on this date in 1994 sometime in the middle of the night. I can never remember the time of the day the kids were born, and Gabrielle was no different, except to say that it was usually late at night.

 She was 6½ yrs old when she died and if she was alive today she’d be 17yrs old. The thing about Gabrielle is that for us she’ll always be little. And for some reason I remember her birth much more clearly than the births of our other kids, though I’m sure that’s different for Gene. 

This short post is simply to remind the world that Gabrielle is in our thoughts and feelings. Death is for all of us at some stage but for her it came very early in life.  She was a source of unbelievable love and attachment so you can imagine when she died how it broke our hearts.  I’ve learnt how important it is to know that we’re here physically.  A big, big part of what grief is about, for me at least, is not being able to hold her and give her a cuddle. Or not being able to have a chuckle with her as she had this fantastic, infectious laugh. Or never being able to call her name again. And she was a beautiful kid to look at with big eyes, long legs and wonderfully soft hair.  We’ve still got some of her dresses hanging in my side of the wardrobe and we hung on to her wheelchair for some years before giving it to one of her classmates at the school who needed an upgrade.

Home from school

When she died it was like being hit by a freight train. The lack of Gabrielle was almost instantly obvious and hard to fathom. She had her place at home, in every room, in the car, in her high-chair, in our favourite restaurants, at her school, out in the backyard and all over Bondi where she was well known by the shop keepers and local.

And then time moves along and you realise she’ll never ever be back and things become almost unbearable.  In your heart you just can’t cope with the overwhelming enormity of her not being there.  Death is tough on everyone and I suspect your little one dying is as tough as it gets in life.  I never want to experience anything like it again. The other day I was chatting to a mate who wasn’t yet a parent, trying to explain how much love you have for your kids and I explained it thus:  think of how much you love the person you’re in love with: the most important, closest, most intimate person in your life. Now multiply that a thousand times. That’s how much you love your kids. Then imagine that person dies.  Imagine that person is gone forever, not just from your home but never, ever to return. It’s as tough as life can be.  There’s no-one and nothing that who can console you.  

So Gabrielle died unexpectedly a couple days after Xmas in the year 2000 and now we’ve learnt to live with that. We celebrate her birthday every year with a cake and a glass of champagne. It’s best described as there being a permanent bit of sadness in your being. Her death aside, she was a joy to behold in every possible way and the thing that really makes me sad is that there are people I now know and care for who never got to know her.  They would have been blown away by her, just as we were. 

What is lovely currently is that there are some new babies in the neighbourhood so being able to hold and cuddle them is easy and wonderful.  Everyone gets such joy from new babies and toddlers. It takes us out of ourselves and away from the tensions of adult life and we all just stare. 

I wish Gabrielle was still here . . .