Cat's in the Cradle

   Yesterday was my nephew's first birthday party.  A whole year has passed since he was born.  During that time he has done all of the usual baby stuff.  He walks well, he feeds himself, he has begun to talk.  He loves to throw a ball and rough house with his cousins.  He is a regular little person now, so very different from that little bundle of joy I held in the hospital.  Don't get me wrong, he is still a bundle of joy.  He is just a bigger bundle of energy and excitement and constant activity- much like his cousins.  Yet, like my own children, he brings joy to my day with just a smile and a hug. 
    It's amazing to me how quickly children grow and become their own person.  My oldest boy has a strange affinity to wearing his crew socks pulled straight up over his shins and no matter how much I beg, he won't push them down.  I have already described for you my younger boy's devotion to the bowl cut.  The older one loves his video games and his legos and believes that being sent outside to play is somewhat akin to walking the green mile to an execution.  His younger brother is a true nature lover.  He smells flowers, plays with worms, watches birds and has to be dragged in from the backyard sometimes kicking and screaming. The big brother who can't imagine a day where he might get sent to the principal's office is a polar opposite of the little brother who's favorite phrase is "Hey, Mom, watch this!"
    My husband and I often joke about the midnight phone call that is inevitable.  "Mr. and Mrs. Cop and Cop's Wife, this is Officer So and So.  I have your son, youungest child, here.  What would you like me to do with him?"
    Police kids usually go in one of two directions- they are either exceptionally well behaved and terrified of the wrath of Dad or they simply assume that they can do whatever they want and Dad will get them out of trouble.  I fear that I have given birth to one of each.  I figure my nephew will fall somewhere in between the two of them unless of course he is with my younger son.  In which case their fear no evil, ask forgiveness later personalities will drive them mercilessly.  Together they will wreak havoc on the world!
   I have dozen of cousins.  My father was one of eight and at last count I had more than two dozen first cousins... forget about second cousins!   As a child I was as close with some of my cousins as my boys are with my nephew.  I don't remember much about those days, we moved away from the rest of the family when I was ten, but I remember that we were close and I often wonder if that would have carried into adulthood.  We try now, with the help of social media to reconnect and establish relationships but it's very difficult with 25 years and 800 miles between us.  Still, they are family and I long for that connection and I want it for my children.  That is one of the primary reasons we pack up our little Ford Focus and travel the 700 miles to see my husband's family and the almost 800 to see mine, sometimes even cramming both families into a seven day trip.  Christmas this year we even managed to pack for Santa Clause in our very tiny little car so that we could spend the holiday with my family- the first without my father and the first with both my nephew and my little niece that lives so far away from us.  She and her brother are young yet, young enough to not remember us from visit to visit but still we are forming ties between the boys and their cousins.  Ties that will bond them together for life.
    Part of my journey to redemption has been to realize the importance of family and friends in my life.  To value each individual for who they are, not what they can do for me.  Instead, I find myself wondering what I can do for others to improve their lives and in the process have found that my own has improved dramatically.  My dad was the sort of man who would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it and although some may have viewed that as being a pushover, I see it as a man who understood that things didn't make the man, how he lived his life did.  I vowed on the day that he died that I would carry on his legacy to the best of my abilities.  I just had to get my head on straight and my life back in order first. 
   My nephew was born at a time when my own life was in a complete shambles.  Caring for him when my sister and his father work has been one of the greatest contributors to the interior remodeling I have undergone.  As a newborn, he needed- demanded-  my attention.  There was no time to focus on money or dilapidated roofs of run down couches.  Focusing on him forced me to focus on my own boys and my husband and the relationships I had with them.  I will never, ever be crowned mother of the year and I can live with that.  But, as my mind became bogged down with worry and fear and my body began to rebel against me, I began to lose track of what was important.  The boys, and my husband, were old enough to not need the constant, diversionary attention that my nephew did and as I slipped away into a sea of frustration and depression, I lost sight of them when they should have been the lighthouse in my stormy night.
    Now that a year has passed, I can look back at that person that I used to be and feel sad for her.  Life in the sunshine is so much better than life in the darkness.  The laundry pile will still be there, the dishes will always need to be washed but my children will grow up and become adults.  I don't want to miss a moment more of their childhood.