It’s been there since he died, the box under the bed.

With all of his things inside.

Things that mean something and nothing.

It comes out rarely now and I thought that I had moved past the material possessions, the physicality of his abscence;

The ultrasound pictures.

The small soft toys, an outfit, a crocheted blanket.

His birth certificate and one pronouncing his death.

The little booties and the hat he had worn all those years ago.

Papers and readings and words to sad songs in remembrance of a small boy.

A lock of hair, some fading ink impressions of not so tiny hands and feet.

Cards and letters, sympathy and empathy all stuffed into the box under the bed.

I can hardly bare to look but I can memorise it’s contents, know every piece by heart.

I know it is there, the reminder box that I once had a  firstborn son.

My second son discovered it today and pulled from it all of the past, marvelled at the small soft seal that, for a few days, belonged to his brother. Lay underneath the blanket and looked at all of the cards. Showed me the booties and tried to put on the beanie

and

my heart was torn.

My first instinct was to gather every last thing up, snatch them, almost, from his little hands.

Tell him, No!

Not those things, they are mine, they are my memory keepers, the last things that I have on this earth to bring me closer to William.

Even though I shove them under the bed amongst the dust bunnies and the piles of  read books and the shoes that are ten years old and haven’t found their way to the bin.

They are still mine to covet, to hoard, to cry over when I need to.

Then I stopped because

they are his too.

They are all that he will ever know of his brother.

These tangible things.

These posessions.

So I packed away the important things, the birth and death certificate, the important papers, the hand and foot prints, the lock of hair and then I let him look amongst his brother’s toys and he and his sister sat on the blanket and had a picnic with the seal and the hippo. All the while, the second son wore the beanie and kept the booties, one on each of his big toes.

The little sister and the little brother talked about all of the things that one might talk about when you are just about to turn three and you are picnicing in your parents’ bedroom,

except, for a moment when they talked, in the softest of  whispers, about the angel called William and how he closed his eyes and when he opened them again he was flying in the clouds

and for an instant I could see all of them playing together and felt closer to my first boy than I had in ages.