Last week was a very hard week. We all had to come to terms with the loss of the triplets as best we could. Fortunately, almost all of my family and my sister-in-law's family were able to attend the funeral on Friday. We all wanted to show our love and support for my brother and his wife and their daughter. However, a few of my family were too far away to be able to come home and they must have felt that distance most keenly on Friday. As a combined family, we aren't looking for a way to get over this, but rather a way forward for all of us, especially for my brother and his wife. The funeral was a big step.

I have been to many funerals yet none have ever touched me so deeply. I have been fortunate in so far as the previous funerals were for people of advanced years, and it was easy to look back on their lives and celebrate all they had been and done. But this time, only their desperate struggle to survive marked the short time the triplets were with us. Yet even though they were here such a short and troubled period, we all had made a place for them in our hearts. Though it was very difficult for everyone, we all needed to come together and share our grief and to say goodbye to Ebony, Macey and Zoe.

I write this blog for many reasons and one is that it shows my thinking at a particular time in my life, as a sort of diary. While mostly light-hearted, the blog also serves as a way to communicate thoughts and emotions that I am not always able to do otherwise. Just as I needed to write about the triplets in a previous entry, I want to write about their funeral today. I want to be able to look back on this entry and remember how I felt at the time.

Because Princess was very upset upon hearing that the triplets had died, we decided the funeral would probably be too traumatic for her and organized for a friend of DW to look after her and Little Man. Its great to have good friends willing to help in such a situation and the Mum's group are the next best thing to family. We explained that we were going to say goodbye to the triplets but that it would be very sad and she might be upset. Amazingly, Princess has been very mature about the whole thing and still remembers the triplets in her night prayers.

I was pleased to see so many people, family and friends, present to show their support. My older brother, who is a deacon in the Catholic Church, was able to perform the ceremony. It was simple and beautiful. My father read a passage from the bible and my sister-in-law's sister read a wonderfully heartfelt poem for the girls. I doubt anybody could help but to share her tears.

On the altar were three candles with a name on each one. Also a photo of the little babies in white dresses, beautiful and tiny. Beneath a bright bunch of flowers was the single small white coffin. Behind the altar, made up with children's letters and arranged to intersect each other, were the girl's names again.

I remember feeling utterly helpless when I watched DW racked with pain as she gave birth to Little Man. I couldn't make the pain stop no matter how much she begged me but at least then I knew it would all be over soon. Again I felt utterly helpless as my brother stepped forward at the end of the service, took up the small white coffin and carried it alone out of the chapel. The pain he and his wife felt would not end soon, and they would not have the joy of watching these children grow up. It was the hardest thing I have seen, watching a man carry his children to their grave. I cannot imagine how hard it would be to do.

We arrived at the cemetry and I remember wishing idly that cemetries didn't have a children's section. Again the service was brief and after the coffin was lowered into the ground, we all released our helium filled white balloons. Six pink balloons, two for each of the girls and released by my brother and his wife, danced among the tumble of white as the gentle breeze lifted them all into the perfect blue sky. We all watched for several minutes as they shrank into the blue and said goodbye to Ebony, Macey and Zoe, as the little pink balloons became too tiny to see.

After a while we all went back to my brother's in-laws place for the wake. It was an emotional funeral and I think everyone felt better having shared the experience. I don't know if my brother and his wife felt the same, but I hope that having friends and family around them made saying goodbye a little easier. Throughout this whole ordeal, my brother and his wife have been incredibly composed. I doubt I could have been as strong.

I spoke to DW last night about everything and she mentioned something I hadn't considered. A friend of hers had a friend whose little boy died a few days after birth. This lady had many family and friends as well and received many cards expressing condolence. However, what she really wanted was for people to congratulate her on having a son. She had lost him and she was devastated but she was also proud of her little boy and wanted people to remember that he had been alive, and not to think only of his passing. I don't know how my brother feels and I know he will tell me if he wants to. But even if it was only for an hour and a half, he got to meet his daughters, living and breathing. He and his wife deserve to be congratulated on the birth of their three daughters. I remember the moment I held each of my own children for the first time and I hope that despite the sorrow of knowing how soon it would end, my brother experienced that moment of joy and wonder of cradling your own child for the first time.

Over the last two weeks I have heard several stories of women who have lost their babies during pregnancy. It seems that each one remembers the child they carried as something precious and I think it can be all too easy for those of us removed from such events to overlook the significance. But for a few short weeks, my nieces premature birth would have been a miscarriage. But for a few short weeks, they might have survived. For a parent, a week can pass in a flash and a whole lifetime can exist in a few short moments. I am sorry for those who only share their child's life for such a short time. I am sorry for those who don't even get that. The only thing I can do is treasure the moments I have with my own children and believe me, I do.

Ciao!