The Elegance of Birth, the Raggedness of Death

21 years ago today, 30th March 2004, at precisely 0500, Julia came shooting into this side of life. A head full of dark hair, the tips of which looked expensively dipped in gold.

She always loved her date of birth – the balance in the digits, the symmetry of sorts with the 2 and 4 wrapping around the 3s, and yet more exciting patterns in her time of birth. So precise and punctual. I had woken at precisely 4h00, nudged Mike and said something like – “something’s happening – we need to go to the hospital”. We left a note for our au pair to take care of Ben and Megan – to get them to their childminder or school, as appropriate. We headed off to hospital at 4h15, arrived at 4h50, and Julia was outside my body ten minutes later.

Easy. Neat.

We both delighted in the number patterns of her special day. The numbers seemed to portend something special. Precious. She was quietly pleased to have landed at such a satisfying intersection of time and day and year.

Her date of death had some of, but not all, of the same elegance in the numbers for day and month.

3006. 30th of June.

But the year of her death, 2019, had none of the elegance. None of the smoothness of the year of her birth. It was when she was 15 years old, so how could there be any smoothness? Any elegance?

As for the time of death? Well, it will always remain a mystery. There was no witness, and when there is no witness, there is no accurate time of death possible. Her death certificate claims her time of death as 1h05 on 1st July.

So officially 0107 2019 0105.

Utterly illogical. Offensive even.

I know she died on the 30th of June. Not on the 1st of July. But given how much is wrong about the whole death certificate anyway, I know I will reject what it says regardless.

It’s not just that the numbers are wrong – look wrong, feel wrong, are wrong. It’s that they attempt to put order where there is none. Where there can be none. They try to put some precision where only chaos reigned. They tidy up what is ragged. What will always feel ragged. Indeed, what should remain ragged. They declare something final when nothing in me can agree with the findings.

And yet, today, 3003 2025 – 30th March 2025 – what would be Julia’s 21st birthday – with another version of rhythmic digits, while the permanent ache is there – present, familiar, utterly part of me now – I find myself okay. Not undone.

This is the first of her birthdays since she died that doesn’t feel utterly abhorrent. Still wrong, of course. Still inconceivable. She should be here. She should be 21. Perhaps at university with friends. Dancing. Drunk. Full of life.

I imagine her full of opinions and dreams. I also imagine her distraught and scared, full of enormous uncertainties about the state of the world that I assume most young adults hold. It’s a tough time to be any age, I feel, but particularly to be young, on the threshold of wading out into the wider world.

So no – I am not shattered like I have been before on her birthday. Yes, I woke up at exactly 5h00 (well, actually 6h00 new time, as our clocks went forward last night). My body always seems to remember. I have awoken at 5h00 every year since her death, on her birthday.

But I was not gasping for air the moment I opened my eyes. Indeed, I lay awake for a while before remembering. Ah yes. Julia’s birthday. Welcome, baby girl.

Neither am I counting down the hours until the day is over. Desperate to be done with the day. Instead I went out on a run in the local woods, feeling utterly at peace, enjoying the beauty and freshness of early Spring.

Today, I remember Julia with a kind of settled presence. A stillness that feels new. Something has shifted and softened. We can call it acceptance for sure. Perhaps Grace. Compassion too. All of which allows me to be with the achey grief rather than be consumed by it.

Today I imagine Julia at 21. It helps that I know some of her friends, otherwise I might lack the imagination to age her in my mind. What colour would her hair be? Would it be dyed or natural? Long or short? And what about her passion for make-up and nail varnish—would that still delight her? Would she still find joy in art and beauty?

Would she be a student? Have a job? Live at home? In a flat share? Be in a relationship with a girlfriend or boyfriend? A sense of what matters to her, what gives her life meaning, and the contribution she hopes to bring to the world?

Or would she be depressed, full of angst and fear, indignant at how we, older generations, are leaving the world? I suspect the latter, but I cling on to a version of her where she is genuinely well, healthy, happy and fulfilled. It’s the easier version of her life I choose to hold on to, to believe in, to hope for. A bit of sweetness on the true-fact version of her life that was so curtailed.

No, there is no way of knowing. And for the first time, that not-knowing feels less nausea-inducing than it used to be. For years after her death, I clung on to an idealised future I knew she could never have, just to give my brain something to occupy it. Just to allow some settling. But today, I can let the questions hang in the air. Open. Unfinished. Like ongoing chords of music that play on without ever resolving.

I carry her in me differently today. She’s less of a gaping wound and more of a vibration. A presence. Not a ghost or a memory, but not entirely present either. She’s in the dates and number patterns as they roll around, relentlessly. She is in the wild scents and scenes of March. And she’s in the quiet moments, on the edges of daily thoughts and feelings, and utterly embedded in the shape of my days.

So today, I mark her birthday. Her birth day. I mark it with all the reverence of a mother who remembers every detail of her arrival in this crazy world. And I mark it with something new: peace, acceptance and permission. Peace with my memories of her. Acceptance of the decision she made to end her life. And permission to feel it all – the sadness, the gratitude, the disbelief, and the strange joy of still being here.

21 years ago today, she came into my arms.

21 years later, she is still held.

Not in the way I wanted.

But held, nonetheless.