AFTER ALEXANDER
“One of the best things about writing the book was that I realised how much that’s become part of who I am. Not in any kind of sentimental way – but I was the mother of a child who died.” Every year on Alexander’s birthday and the day he died, Pryor lights a candle.
She holds on to the memories – his delight as she bounced him on the bed. The four of them – Simon, Emily, Jim and her – each taking a corner of his buggy as they navigated the stairs of the Paris Metro on a precious family holiday, the kids singing to him.
If she could go back, Pryor would have a proper funeral – in a garden, filled with the people who loved Alexander. It’s no accident she is now a funeral celebrant – offering the kind of special, non-religious ritual that Alexander never had.
Alexander’s death was classified as cot death. Looking for explanation, Pryor dug into cot death research. But in the end, she had to accept that science simply had no answers.
Three decades on we know parental smoking and sleeping position are risk factors, and New Zealand’s infant death rate has fallen 21 per cent, from 1996 to 2014. But sudden unexpected death still claimed 45 Kiwi babies in 2014. It took time for Pryor to realise she was grateful for the four months she had with Alexander, despite the grief.
Like many couples suffering the loss of a child, Pryor’s marriage did not survive. For six years after Alexander’s death, they carried on. Jim kind of shut down – and society offered little support – while Pryor was this “weepy, needy woman”. It’s impossible to know how much grief was to blame, but looking back, Pryor sees they didn’t talk enough.
“The main thing we didn’t do – and I know this is a very important failure and message – is we didn’t attend to our relationship, and we should have. We were just so focused on the kids.”
There are lingering anxieties, too. Pryor describes her world view as “vulnerable optimism”. Before, she simply saw the world as benign. Esther had a baby monitor – in those days a crude and uncommon machine. As the children grew, she was vigilant, but not suffocating. And when grandchildren arrived, Pryor fretted, but forgave herself.
The act of writing After Alexander – drawing on diary entries from the time – helped Pryor make sense of the process. She hopes her story will help others acknowledge their own grief, and the change that loss has wrought in their own lives.
“Now as I look back over all of that 35 years later, I realise the enormity of the impact an event like that has. And these events go unrecognised I think, for many people. A miscarriage is not often discussed; losing a child at birth. These are huge events in people’s lives and I think many people are encouraged to just not talk about it.
“I have come out a much stronger person, I know myself better. I don’t regret, even for a second, having had him. It was a tragic and in some ways a wonderful experience.”