Back when I was in middle school, our cats had kittens, and we ended up finding homes for several of them. One night I had what seemed at that age to be both a profound and devestating thought: I would never see the kittens again, not even in heaven. If their owners were good people, and of course I hoped that they were, then the cats would be reunited with them in the afterlife, not us. They only knew us for eight weeks, after all, and they'd spend lifetimes with their new families. This epiphany made me cry that night.

This thought is one I revisited, because someone whose wife miscarried a baby this week wrote a lovely thing about seeing the baby in heaven. I haven't really been thinking about the kittens, so much as my lost siblings. I don't think about them often, but once in a while. Vynce does too, so I've learned.

If they'd been born, they'd be twenty-eight, twenty-one and twenty now.  It's probably a blessing that the two younger didn't come to term, since my mother hadn't been trying to get pregnant (had been actively trying not to, actually), and had been taking medications that are most likely what caused those miscarriages. The first one, however, probably would have been perfectly healthy, and was only lost when she'd had a bad fall on the stairs.

For no reason whatsoever, I feel that the oldest would have been a girl, and the other two would have been boys. So that's what I picture when I try to imagine what life would have been like if there'd been five kids instead of two. And I hate to admit it, but I mostly imagine that things would have been worse all around.

Had my parents not done better financially (like taking different career paths or what have you), it would have been pretty rough. I'm sure it would have taken longer to escape the city, because I don't see them moving easily with kids ten, eight, four, one and one on the way. It probably wouldn't have been good on my mother's mental health, either.

But maybe it wouldn't have been bad at all. It doesn't feel as realistic, but it might have been okay if I'd had a sister, and Vynce little brothers. Maybe Dad would have gotten a job that precluded money problems, and maybe Mom would have been too busy to worry all the time. It's impossible to say.

I would never say this to the grieving father, but I don't believe I'll see those lost siblings in heaven, either. Since I don't believe in reincarnation, I don't think they have other families like those kittens, but why would they want us? I have trouble imagining that immature spirits need to seek out the people who would have been their families. I'm glad, however, that the thought I can't embrace brings that couple some comfort. After all, they could be right and I wrong.