He's the youngest now-A loss is not just a moment in time: the loss of one child and life with his siblings

 A lot of things hit differently with our loss of Michael, in relation to our other kids.

 This picture was taken back in 1998, when we joined my grandma, some of my cousins, and their kids on a float honoring our grandparents for a small-town parade. (And yes, little thirty-year-old me was pretty proud of how those costumes turned out) The "corn" has now been married for ten years, the "pea pod" is getting married this Fall, the baby "turnip" is married and a mom of two, and the "raspberry" was our Michael, gone too soon.

When he died, he was halfway past twenty-six. He was the second-oldest of our four kids, and six years older than the youngest. She's now twenty-seven. He seemed so much older and grown-up back then, but now...they're all, even the "baby," older than he'll ever be.

We've had two weddings and will have another later this year. Without him. It's hard and awkward and painful, hand-in-hand with fully joyous celebration. I had a hard, beautiful, searingly tender moment at our younger daughter's wedding a few years ago, when at the last minute we thought to ask Michael's oldest friend to walk me down the aisle. We both looked absolutely stone-faced in the pictures, as we struggled fiercely with tears. It was wonderfully right, and tremendously meaningful, and also...so hard.

Michael now has a nephew who will turn two next week, and a niece born this Spring. I'm glad he got to be an honorary uncle to his friends' kids ("Unca Mitch" to the littlest, who couldn't quite pronounce Mike), as he didn't live long enough to be an uncle to his siblings' kids. They'll never know him. He'll never know them. How, and at what age, do you tell your small child that there was another uncle, but he died? At what age can a kid handle knowing that their other uncle died by suicide? Our kids who have children will have those difficult conversations to navigate, someday down the road. That won't be easy.

So how do I, how do we do it? We try to pay attention to our feelings in these important situations. We talk about it when we need to. When such a thing comes up, I check in with that child, like recently asking our son, "How are you doing with not having your brother in your wedding party?"  I'm not there to advise or correct, just to listen; to given them an opening to talk about it if they want to.

When I meet our kids' adult friends, new friends made since 2018, and I tell family stories, I carefully don't mention Michael, or things like having had four kids. The stories of their brother and his life and his death are theirs to tell, when and how they choose. I don't "out" their loss and pain to people they may not be ready to share it with yet. Each person has their own journey with loss, and I think it's really important to respect one another's comfort zones and ways of coping.

A death is not a moment in time; a fixed point from which everyone, eventually, moves on. It continues to hit and ripple, throughout the rest of life, for those left behind.