CHRISTIAN

My baby brother has painted rosebud lips. Rouged cheeks. Long dark lashes. His face is round and perfect, crowned by wisps of dark hair. The corners of his mouth curve into a gentle smile. Five weeks old, with the silky soft complexion of a newborn and the double chin of a healthy, nine-pound baby. Delicate ears foreshadow a slimmer, more athletic build later in life – much like his two younger siblings to come. His eyes are softly closed and his nose is the perfect button with a wide bridge, so familiar in an infant’s face.

But it’s a lie. It’s all a lie.

The colours are painted onto a black and white photo – a common practice in the sixties. It’s the only photo ever taken, in an era predating the commonality of photography we now take for granted. It was taken at the morgue, sometime after he died. The soft blue background of the coloured-in photograph compliments the pink cheeks and pristine white nightgown. Yet despite the false colours and two-dimensional image, it’s obvious he’s dead. The photograph conveys the deathly stillness of his body along with the unnatural colours of his face.

I know his story intimately well. September 17 1968. I’m just two and a half when Christian is born at Calvary Hospital. Five weeks later he’s gone. A perfectly healthy baby boy, dying in his sleep. Sudden infant death syndrome the doctors said. A syndrome. It’s not how my parents describe it. For almost three decades we never speak of him. His story a mystery. His photo hidden away. His death haunting my parents with grief and guilt for the rest of their days. But over the years I learn more. Never from my mother – she rarely speaks of him, and only ever in terms of how she failed. But from my father and grandmother I piece the story together.

Christian was beautiful and healthy, chubby and full of life. His long dark lashes exactly like my brother, who is yet to be conceived. Put to bed in his cot, he’s later heard crying for a short period of time but settles himself so my parents don’t go in. For decades they hold onto this guilt. If only…

When eventually dad goes in, Christian is cold and blue. No sign of the painted rosebud lips. No soft rouge on his cheeks. Just that fatal soft bluish-purple hue skin takes on, when warm blood ceases to flow through veins.

Dad shouts to my mother, Run down to the doctor! Get the doctor now! So she runs. Dad desperately applies mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until the doctor arrives and tells him to stop. It’s too late. He’s dead. He can’t be saved. The ambulance arrives and Christian is taken to the morgue. My parents don’t hold him, touch him, or say goodbye. They never see him again.

Mum phones my grandmother, “I’ve killed him! I’ve killed my baby!” she cries down the line.

It isn’t true. But guilt is an eternal weight around every parent’s neck. If only…

In 1968 grief counselling is a stark contrast to twenty-first century practice. Just have a good cry for a couple of weeks and you’ll be right dear, say the nuns at Calvary. Buckets of tears are shed, but she is never right. My mother’s heart shatters into a million pieces and is never whole again.

A few weeks later we move interstate, leaving behind all that is familiar and comforting. It’s unfortunate timing. Dad had already accepted a new job in Perth – the house sold, packing underway, removalists organised, and travel plans in place. Still in the throes of grief, my parents leave friends and family behind and move 3000 kilometers away, with me in tow bewildered by recent events. My baby brother safely ensconced in a tiny white coffin, six feet below the earth. It’s too early for the headstone to be erected before they leave, but it’s chosen and ordered. I know it intimately well – I’ve visited his grave in Cornelian Bay a hundred times. His infant body just one in a sea of dead babies at the children’s section of the cemetery.

I don’t remember him dying but I always knew I had another brother – I don’t remember not knowing.

He’s my angel brother – his round face with its gentle smile and dark lashes, never marred by age. Never naughty or disappointing. He never made mistakes or did any of the myriad things that happen as we grow and learn. He remains unchanged – forever perfect and innocent.

The only photo ever taken of my baby brother is a lie. The soft colours exaggerating a life long since gone. I treasure this photo with every ounce of my being. His perfect face I have silently called upon countless times. My guardian angel with the rosebud lips and long dark lashes.

In the 1980s mum reads an article about cough medicine and wonders if perhaps that’s how she killed her baby. She’d taken some when pregnant. For the rest of her days she wonders what she did wrong and how things might have been different. If only…

In 2018 I interview my father. He’s 85 years old and we’re recording his story for posterity. Christian would have turned 50 this year. Despite five decades passing, dad cannot talk of that day without his eyes welling with tears and a catch in his throat. Still wondering how things might have been different. If only…

I was once asked what I would choose if I could go back in time and change one thing. Just one single thing. Without hesitation it’s this day I would change. The day my parents’ hearts broke. The day my 24-year-old highly anxious mother had her worst nightmare realised. The day my emotional and sensitive father began to break. When grief and fear began to rule our family. The day my brother became angelic and the rest of us never good enough by comparison.