The number 13.
For many it is considered unlucky, for some it’s their roulette bet.
Numbers are everywhere we look. Especially the number 13.
Friday the 13th
13 reasons why
In Greek mythology, Zeus was the thirteenth and the most powerful god.
The four seasons each have 13 weeks
In Tarot, the 13th card is Death – but this actually symbolizes endings that can lead to powerful rebirths and new beginnings
The number 13 also reminds us of the 13 diners at the last supper. Judas one who betrayed Jesus Christ was the 13th guest to arrive.
If you are Jewish, 13 is your batmitzvah age.
For me, 13 is beyond significant.
There are 13 months between two of my children.
Do you know exactly where you were and what you were doing 13 years ago?
My son died today, 13 years ago to this day.
13 years without my baby.
13 years of remembering the day he passed.
13 years of being mostly fine and getting on with my day.
13 years of having bad days where I can’t explain why I’m irritable, or why I’m sad, or why I feel like it’s not fair.
13 years of avoiding questions such as “how many kids do you have?”, and comments such as “wow your kids are close in age”.. (my second daughter was born 21 months after my son passed, innocent observers not realising that there was always one more in between those two, who would have been celebrating becoming a teenager on his 13th birthday.
13 years of being a statistic of pregnancies that result in stillbirth.
The number 4.
Another significant number.
The unluckiest number in the Chinese world of superstition.
Every 4 years is the Olympics.
Four is the only number in English that is equal to the number of letters in its name.
The ancient Greeks associated the number four with earthly balance, believing that everything was made of four elements: earth, air, fire and water.
4 seasons.
There are four valves in the human heart.
I have four kids.
My first born daughter, my son who passed, my rainbow baby girl born after he died and my number 4, the little boy who monopolises so much of my heart that even on the bad days I have a reason to laugh.
I wrote this a while ago.
I was having a day when these thoughts came to me.
I rarely show my personal writing to anyone, not even my husband.
I decided to show my best friend.
She too has walked the line through unimaginable grief. She too knows loss and pain and what it is like to loose apart of yourself with no warning, and no way of making sense of it.
After reading, she explained to me that when you loose someone so close to you, sometimes numbers are all you have. Numbers, can be the only way to hold on to a memory or a way to keep something from falling away.
Numbers are tangible. When everything around your heart is a mess, numbers are organised.
So this week, although it is filled with numbers that represent my pain, I choose to celebrate another number.
One.
The number 1 is me.
This week has been shit.
This week I haven’t wanted to get out of bed.
But on this 1 day, I will choose to be excited that my rainbow baby daughter, the one born to us after we lost our baby boy, will celebrate her birthday.
I choose to get out of bed.
I choose to wrap her gifts with love.
I choose to find the happiness in this sometimes empty space.
I choose to celebrate that she is turning 13.
Thanks for reading x
