"Sisters and brothers...how many may you be?"

The poem I want to talk about next specifically targets the death of a sibling.  It used to be a simple question, “How many kids are in your family?”  Then, after losing a sibling, the present tense in are becomes problematic. 

Before losing Josh I always answered that question with “five.”  Jeremy, me, Ashley, Jeff, and Josh.  Then, after Josh’s death, answering that question became awkward.  If I say “five” now, is it misleading?  If I say “four,” then I’m doing Josh a disservice.  He’s still a part of the family, right—even if he isn’t physically here?  Or maybe I should be totally upfront and say, “I have three surviving siblings, and one who passed away.”  But then again, a lot of times that’s too much information, and bringing up the death of a sibling tends to make a polite conversation turn awkward.

That’s why I was so glad to have this poem to turn to.  I read it for the first time before Josh’s death, and I thought it was sweet.  It wasn’t until confronted with that now-awkward question of sibling statistics that the poem took on true meaning for me.

This poem is called “We Are Seven,” and was written by William Wordsworth in 1798.  In it, an adult and a child disagree over how many siblings the young girl has in her family.

--------A SIMPLE Child,

          That lightly draws its breath,

          And feels its life in every limb,

          What should it know of death?

          I met a little cottage Girl:

          She was eight years old, she said;

          Her hair was thick with many a curl

          That clustered round her head.

          She had a rustic, woodland air,

          And she was wildly clad:                                    10

          Her eyes were fair, and very fair;

          --Her beauty made me glad.

          "Sisters and brothers, little Maid,

          How many may you be?"

          "How many? Seven in all," she said

          And wondering looked at me.

          "And where are they? I pray you tell."

          She answered, "Seven are we;

          And two of us at Conway dwell,

          And two are gone to sea.                                    20

          "Two of us in the church-yard lie,

          My sister and my brother;

          And, in the church-yard cottage, I

          Dwell near them with my mother."

          "You say that two at Conway dwell,

          And two are gone to sea,

          Yet ye are seven!--I pray you tell,

          Sweet Maid, how this may be."

          Then did the little Maid reply,

          "Seven boys and girls are we;                               30

          Two of us in the church-yard lie,

          Beneath the church-yard tree."

          "You run about, my little Maid,

          Your limbs they are alive;

          If two are in the church-yard laid,

          Then ye are only five."

          "Their graves are green, they may be seen,"

          The little Maid replied,

          "Twelve steps or more from my mother's door,

          And they are side by side.                                  40

          "My stockings there I often knit,

          My kerchief there I hem;

          And there upon the ground I sit,

          And sing a song to them.

          "And often after sunset, Sir,

          When it is light and fair,

          I take my little porringer,

          And eat my supper there.

          "The first that died was sister Jane;

          In bed she moaning lay,                                     50

          Till God released her of her pain;

          And then she went away.

          "So in the church-yard she was laid;

          And, when the grass was dry,

          Together round her grave we played,

          My brother John and I.

          "And when the ground was white with snow,

          And I could run and slide,

          My brother John was forced to go,

          And he lies by her side."                                   60

          "How many are you, then," said I,

          "If they two are in heaven?"

          Quick was the little Maid's reply,

          "O Master! 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!"

I was surprised to learn that at the time Wordsworth wrote this poem, he had not experienced the loss of a sibling.  It wasn’t until 1805 that he would have a first-hand experience with this awkward question.  I wondered how Wordsworth had hit the emotions so spot-on, and then I recognized that childhood deaths were, sadly, rather common at the time.  Wordsworth fathered six children in his lifetime, and he lost two of them in 1812.  Catherine was a few months shy of her fourth birthday, and Thomas was six.  Wordsworth, even as the 28-year-old bachelor poet of 1798, must have been surrounded and touched by such loss.

The first time I read this poem was in a college British literature class.  The discussion surrounding it involved catering to childhood innocence.  The man needs to just let the little girl live in her innocent fantasies because the world and all its realities will crash down on her soon enough.  One day, she’ll figure out that the real answer to the question involves only living siblings.  Since I was a student who needed credit and had about 700 pages of reading per week, I dutifully took notes, regurgitated the information on the test, and only spent a few minutes (maybe not even that long) thinking about my true opinion on the issue.

That all changed when I found myself in the shoes of the little girl.  There I was, confronted with the friendly get-to-know-you question of family basics.  “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”  If I counted Josh and answered “four,” was I delusional like the little girl?  Should I face reality like the man in the poem wants and only count the siblings who are physically present? 

I had to side with the little girl.  If I only counted living siblings, I wasn’t facing reality, I was rewriting it.  Siblings aren’t possessions that you can have and lose.  They’re not gone when they’re gone.  They shape us, help create us, and become a big part of who we are.  That lasts forever.

If I could take that test over, I would not answer with the rote recitation of the teacher’s analysis.  I would point to the famous fairy tale of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”  Sometimes, it’s the adults who live in their fantasies and the small children who see the truth.

We are five.