My nephew Aiden is the most important person in the world to me, and this weekend was his fourth birthday party.
He's also the one who makes my life particularly difficult. There are a few reasons why I only lasted a year in Vancouver, and the main one is that going months at a time without seeing his little face was actually physically painful.
Even flying home for his second birthday toting a massive toddler drum set, and a few other spontaneous flights home to spend time with him would not satisfy me, not even after forcing him to speak to me on the phone every morning while I waited for the bus.
Despite the fact he has caused any homesickness I ever felt to increase exponentially, I don't blame him for it. It's hard to imagine life before he came along - who did I go puddle jumping with, or spend hours at the park with, or watch animated movies with, over and over again while saying the lines along with the cartoon characters?
Who made me laugh so hard I cried, or kissed me with drooly lips and then laughed when I made a face? It must have been a dark and empty existence, that's all I know.
The thing about Aiden is that he's the only child in my family. He has no siblings or cousins. Growing up around grown-ups (most of whom are a little strange) has left him with an understandable inability to relate to children his own age, and a tendency to break out the bad language just when the senior ladies in the shops are commenting on what polite manners he has.
Despite what my sister may claim, that isn't my fault, by the way.
I was in the hospital the day Aiden was born, and I was the first one to hold him (my sister has got a different story about that too, but she was heavily drugged at the time, thus, I don't have to take that seriously at all). He was angry and silent and probably pretty confused, but a nurse dropped him into my arms with a curt "Hold him, will you?" and of course I did. I'd held a baby before, once, so I knew just what I was doing.
I stared at him and he stared at me and he wasn't as gross as I expected a new baby to be.
I loved him a lot that day, but the day I realized I loved him the most was a few weeks later, when I was holding him and he was staring up at me and I stuck out my tongue and he scrunched up his face with concentration and slowly, carefully, stuck his out too.
After that, there were a series of moments cemented in my mind like the fact he was the luckiest boy in the world to have an aunt like me. Moments like rocking him to sleep on the swing in the backyard when he was fussy, falling asleep watching Winnie the Pooh when he was only days old, and reading him story books before he was old enough to know what words were, but still making sure to tell him what was happening in all the pictures.
The day I realized maybe I was the lucky one, getting to have him in my life, was the day when he held my hand and traced sleepy circles on my palm the way I always did to him, singing him to sleep while he fought to keep his eyes open.
Then there was the day I looked over and his blonde head and beady little eyes were popping over the edge of the playpen and I realized he was growing taller, teaching him to sing like a dolphin, to give a thumbs up (he's still working on learning the difference between a thumb and a pointer finger), and, his favourite, teaching him a fist bump and how to make it explode afterwards.
This birthday, instead of a flight from Vancouver and a little blue drum set, I drove in my car with a massive bubble cannon in the backseat.
My hometown of Wainwright is the type of town where, if you're looking for someone and they're not home when you drive by their place, all you've got to do is head down main street looking for their car, and if you don't see it, head out to Wal-mart.
I found my sister and nephew in the dollar store, picking out birthday balloons and streamers and arguing fiercely over whether or not Aiden needed a marshmallow blaster.
When he saw me, he shouted my name, tackled me, clung to me, and pulled me to the floor. "Auntie Wissa, you're here!" he cried, and he has never smiled so big.
"Did you come for me?" he asked.
Of course I did. I haven't missed a birthday yet, and I won't ever, if I can help it.
It's only been a few weeks since I've seen him, but I swear, he's a little taller. I can't imagine how tall he'll be next year.
