A heartfelt reminder of a baby who died
AS you come to realise in adulthood, there are things in life that you just can’t explain away. With all the joys that life brings, it sometimes offers great sadness too. Things happen that seem so unfair that there is no way of rationalising them. Losing a child is one of the worst things that can happen to a parent as there seems to be no reason for such a tragedy.
So how, then, do we explain this loss to another child when we find it hard to explain it to ourselves?
That is exactly the situation writer Siobhán Parkinson found herself in when she and her husband discovered their second child was not going to survive for long past birth. What she had not expected was the impact that would have on her son Matthew, who was just about to turn six years old.
He had been very much looking forward to the birth of his sibling, a new friend to play with. And so Siobhán found herself in the unenviable position of having to explain to her child that the baby in her tummy was not going to live.
Heavily pregnant, she trudged the shops looking for a book that would help her open up the subject with her son Matthew but found none. There was nothing to help explain a child’s death to a sibling so she wrote one herself while still expecting her baby. The result was All Shining in the Spring, the story of a baby who died.
The book, which is beautifully illustrated by Donald Teskey, was first published by O’Brien Press 30 years ago to help parents like Parkinson negotiate those troubled waters none of us wish to find ourselves in but all too often do.
‘Miscarriage, stillbirth and the death of a baby are not topics people like to discuss, and most people are especially reluctant to take to small children about such sad events,’ Parkinson writes. ‘But children can be as much affected by these things as their parents.’
The book tells the story of Matthew, how much he was looking forward to having a little brother or sister and how sad he felt when he found out the baby would not survive.
In a simple and sympathetic way, All Shining in the Spring explains how Matthew feels when he realises the baby kicking in his mother’s tummy won’t live. He is allowed to feel sad, lonely and even angry at the events, as are his parents and grandparents.
The book explains that baby Daniel died minutes after birth. Any heart would
break reading how Matthew felt seeing his little brother for the first time as he lay still in his hospital cot with his perfect little fingers and toes.
Parkinson didn’t want the book to be all angels and rainbows, nor did she want the hint that there could be another baby because sometimes there isn’t. Instead, baby Daniel is buried in a special place and his family plant, tulips, daffodils and crocuses over his tiny white coffin.
‘It will be all shining when the spring comes,’ says Matthew in the book, of that special place.
Although this was written 30 years ago, not much has changed when it comes to talking about the loss of a child and this beautiful book, though aimed at children, is meant to be read with an adult. But the words Parkinson has written will help many adults too, when faced with such a difficult time in their lives. There is no pretence here that nothing is wrong, no shying away from the devastation a child’s death brings to everyone in the family. It is a book that is honest and heartbreaking but offers insight into how we eventually learn to carry loss with us.
Those bright yellow flowers which are no doubt blossoming now remind the family of Daniel every time spring. Daniel would be 30 this year which is why Parkinson is delighted to have been able to reissue this important book on her own publishing imprint, now run by her very much grown up son Matthew.
A sad and true story about loss and grief that is beautifully written and will continue to help so many.