John Dekker's Day

1:13PM - Rethinking siblings

I've decided to revise the number of siblings that I tell people I have.

You see, a friend of mine had a miscarriage this year, and that got me thinking. A dead foetus is still a real person. And if you believe - as I do - that children of Christian believers belong to Jesus, then you can take comfort in the fact that your baby has gone to heaven. Which, of course, means he or she is more alive than they ever have been.

Now my Mum had a miscarriage years before I was born, and so I have a brother or sister waiting for me in heaven, and have six siblings instead of five.

This truth is expressed most beautifully in Wordsworth's poem, We Are Seven:

"But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!"
'Twas throwing words away; for still
The little Maid would have her will,
And said, "Nay, we are seven!"