School has started which means for my girls, new teachers and new students who may know that they have three sisters but do not know about the girls' two brothers. I leave it up to my girls as to whether they want to share that information. At different times it has made each of the girls uncomfortable to answer their classmates' questions about who their brothers are and probably more importantly, where they are. Having never had to tell anyone that I had a brother but that he died, I don't know exactly how that feels. For that reason I really give them leeway about how they handle the situation. Sometimes they've shared it at the beginning of the year and then let it go the rest of the year. It hurts to hear the ways they've shared their brothers because it's just not the way they share their sisters. None of them even met Wyatt so they have little to say about him and Eli lived so briefly that while they remember him they have little to share about their time with him. He never took their toys or puked on their shoulders or called them names. He never kissed their cheeks or grabbed their fingers with his own wrinkly little hand. I feel for them. My heart swells a little when they share and sinks a little when they don't but I respect that decision. I mean, really, it's one similar to decisions that I've made 100 times when I meet new people who only see or know about my four daughters. It's a split second decision based on a gut feeling and even those gut feelings can lead me wrong sometimes.
So far, two out of the three oldest girls have had a chance to share their brothers. There's bitter with the sweet. We'll see if the last one has a chance and what her choice ends up being.
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