Aunt Do

Searching my entire life, I doubt I could find anything so equally joyous and heart wrenching as being an aunt.

My first nephew was born in the fall of 1999.  I had been married just 15 months and was already struggling with infertility.  My marriage was a disaster and I was on the brink of destroying my life with a strong desire to turn to drugs.

At the time, my tiny sister-in-law-to-be was two weeks past her due date with a baby boy who was to be only 6 lbs.  Early on the morning of Thanksgiving, she was finally in labor.  She tried and tried to deliver the baby.  Standing in the hall at the hospital, I could see her in pain and trying all different positions.  After hours, the baby was on his way out.  He would get stuck in the birth canal, causing his heart rate to drop dangerously low.  The doctor would have no choice but to pull him out using forceps.

It was quite a roller coaster of emotion as we waited to hear that first cry.  A good cry and an hour later, I'd find myself standing in the nursery holding my firstborn nephew.  He was a whopping 9.2 lbs and had just a hint of a bruise above his eye from the forceps. 

At that moment, I decided the most important thing in my life was being the best example of a human I could be to this baby and that I never wanted to be far away from him.  It was life altering and one of the major reasons I stayed put in my marriage.

My nephew spent the first week of his life in the NICU of CMH because of swelling in his head.  That wouldn't be his first trip by ambulance to the hospital either.  He made several more during his first few years of life.  He started life with an allergy to food dyes that would cause him to stop breathe and seize.  Thankfully, he grew out of that.

In March 2000, September 2000 and October 2005, my brothers would make me a happy aunt again.  A few of them could never pronounce my first name and even my middle name.  So, I would become known to them all at one time or another as "Aunt Do."  A name I gladly accepted and a title I wore proudly.

I could tell you hundreds of stories that would all end in my sincere gratitude for being able to be an aunt.  I took my nephew to his first movie, Finding Nemo.  I traveled several places with the three oldest ones.  My niece liked to throw herself on the ground, kicking and screaming.  I babysat multiple times.  When asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, my nephew said, "I want to be a dad and live in KC."  I have spent countless hours at Chuckie Cheeses with all of them.  Good and bad, it's all been wonderful.

But it's been incredibly painful too.

Living 2 hours away from them has been difficult.  The older of my brothers divorced when his son was very young.  It became difficult to see his children when he barely had them once or twice a month.  My oldest niece is in fact, not my brother's biological child.  The divorce made that a point of contention for some of my family.  Sadly, I know the biological father.  He has inquired about paternity many times and been lied too.  I have a difficult time accepting the decision to keep her from her biological father, who I am certain would love her.  (Long story short, the biological father is a distant relative of my husband's and therefore shares his bloodline.)

When it became apparent that for my own well-being I needed to sever ties with my parents, it became a package deal.  They lived in the same town and I couldn't get near my nieces and nephews without running into my parents.  That was in 2007. 

It has been a very long, extremely difficult five years.  I was able to have one niece and nephew stay with me during Thanksgiving of 2007.  In 2009, I saw all four of them at an event in their hometown.  It was a brief visit and two of them did not know who I was.  In early 2011, I met up with my sister-in-law, one niece and one nephew for lunch.  That has been all of the contact I've had with them in five years. 

Every birthday.  Every holiday.  First day of school.  Snow days.  In conversations.  When I look at pictures.  It's all so painful.  I don't think I've ever missed anyone like I miss them.  It is a hurt that digs deep into who I am and what motivates me. 

I hope someday I will be able to explain to them why I was absent from their lives and I desperately pray that they will understand.  I hope they will know I never stopped thinking about them or caring about them.

In 12 days (yes, there is a mental countdown), I will get two of them for 6 days.  I feared this would never happen, at least not before they were grown adults anyway.  I have days and days full of things to do.  I know that in their pre-teen personalities, they will want to go and do and have fun.  And fun is what we shall have!

There is nothing I would love more than to go back in time to that point where they were little and just wanted to cuddle with Aunt Do.  But since I can't, I have only one wish, one desire for the entire time they are with me.  I hope that I can savor every moment while being that person I knew I wanted to that first time I looked at my nephew's big blue eyes.

I want to be that person who loves them unconditionally.  I want to show them respect for people, places and things.  I want to be that role model of a person, a wife, an aunt.  And the biggest thing, the one thing that never crossed my mind in 1999, I want them to see Jesus in my life.