I know
news.sky.com/story/gary-barlow-i-had-one-incredible-hour-with-my-stillborn-baby-girl-11521211
I feel for the Barlows. When I was two years old my mother had a full term still birth. I didn’t find out until I was eight when my dad let something slip.
Back then there was no such consideration for the bereaved. There was no funeral, there was only a small sad announcement in the local paper, closing ‘stillborn’. I have no idea what became of my brother’s remains: indeed I hate to think about it. But I do know that my mother never came to terms with it. She never spoke about it to me, and she carried her grief and her anger for the remaining fifty years of her life. It’s still in me and it always will be.
She and my dad deserved an hour with their child.
My father never spoke of the two siblings he lost and he himself was lucky to survive. Sometimes the stoic nature of the Scots does not lend itself to the expression of personal grief. I don’t want wailing and weeping but quiet acknowledgement would not go amiss.
I was very moved visiting President Kennedy’s grave that one son who lived for only two days is beside him.