You're only as happy as your saddest child.

There’s a phrase that goes something like this “You’re only as happy as your saddest child”. I always thought that was a wise quote. My mother raised me and my three sisters with the best of intent and much success, and I saw her doing her utmost to make us all as happy as we could be. Little did I know she did it all with a heart broken beyond belief, as she too was a bereaved mother. I always knew that losing a child must have been awful, I just didn’t know quite how awful it was. She had buried our brother Ian when he was almost two years old, and only now do I understand how tremendously difficult this had to have been for her.

You ARE only as happy as your saddest child. Once you’ve had a child, you come to know this phrase is true. If one of your children is sick, you want to get them better, to fix them. When our little Dominic was sick, we moved heaven and earth to get him better, all the while knowing that his recovery was the only way we could be happy again. If another child has had a bad day at school, you empathize and badly want to fix it. Sometimes you try and fix it, whatever IT is, and you manage it. Other times you can’t fix it. But you always want to try. Because until they’re happy, you can’t be.

This phrase got me thinking about how this quote works now, after one’s child has died. The worst has happened. The child is gone, will always be gone. They are no longer here in real life. Therefore, for me, I feel like I will always be gone, no longer here in real life. Where else could I be?