These wonderful siblings
If you're lucky, you have siblings, and if you're even luckier, it could be the longest relationship you have with another human being in your life. I know it can look so different and I also know you don't have to love each other just because you are family. I was lucky! My older brother and I liked each other very much, even though we were often very far apart on some issues. What we had was background, references in not least scent and sound and an understanding of where the other came from. We both had a great passion for both music and food. At the same time, there were things that I neither could nor perhaps did not want to understand, but I respected them. It was like he and those things were part of the package. I knew he was there like only a big brother can be.
I had counted on him somewhere and I think I took him a little for granted. He and I would look after our parents together when they got older and we would be uncompromisingly siblings for the rest of our lives. Well, now his life in this form ended far too early and of course it didn't turn out the way I thought or thought. It never will, right? Suddenly he was gone and now some years have passed and the loss comes over me of course. I rarely think about the day he disappeared but I think about the time we had together. I think of it with great pleasure. We had a good time. It was a good time! What an enormous privilege to be allowed to look back in that way. For me, he is constantly present and I experience his company and support. Imagination? So what? The main thing is how I chose to relate and find peace in it.
Why am I writing about this now, you might ask? Well, when the children were smaller, a small radio documentary was made on UR for children about what it's like to be the sibling of a child with functional variation. In the “funky world”, it may feel extra important but a little difficult to think about the sibling issue and the sibling role. It somehow becomes significantly more sensitive and there is perhaps even more hope and desire for the siblings to have a good relationship in the future. The difficult thing that you prefer not to think about but that you may still have to relate to sometimes. If you know that your child is dependent on other people's good will, support and presence in the future, as when we have a child with Down's syndrome and functional variation, the idea of siblings becomes more tangible. Our ambition is that our offspring should have the opportunity to at least realize themselves and to grow and develop on their own terms and pace. The same wish we have for Doris. In a way not weirder than that and in another a little hard to think about without feeling a pang of worry. We as parents have at least learned one thing and that is not to charge everything in advance. Take one day at a time, do our best to "dress up" and prepare all three for the future. It probably won't turn out as we thought, damn it.
Our oldest boy was 9 years old at the time of the radio recording and he told us in that self-evident and unconditional way about what it was like to be Doris' big brother. Just like only a big brother can.
Important and nice in many ways.
