My Sister's Sons

Day 26 is a bittersweet day of thankfulness.  I smile as I reminisce about my nephews as young boys and I cry for the decisions they are making today.  When they were born, I wondered if I could possibly love my own children that I would have one day as much as I loved them.

My sister is the closest person I have on this earth apart from my husband and my love for her is carried down to her sons.  When her first son was born, he became my living baby doll.  I cuddled him, carried him and played with him.  He became my little shadow.

He loved to watch Lassie and would cry broken hearted when it was over.  He loved his cowboy hat and blanket, he loved looking at books, and he was afraid of car washes.  We sang "Smokie the Bear" together, read books and played cars.  He was mine.

Along came little brother who had red hair and had enormous brown eyes.  He was mine too because us redheads had like a private club that only redheads were a part of.  It seemed he arrived talking.  That little boy could talk the warts off a frog.  I remember babysitting one time when he was about 4 or 5 and there was a little stream behind the house.  The last words his mom said was, "don't let them near the creek."  Well, before she was hardly out of the driveway I heard big brother screaming at me to come around the house, and there was my little redhead, dripping wet.  He had fallen in the creek and proceeded to tell us all he saw sharks and alligators while he was down there. 

They used to come and stay with me during the summer when I was a teenager.  So many memories.  How aggravating they could be and at the same time so much fun.  I was on a women's softball team, so they'd go to practices and games with me and have the time of their lives.

Then I started my own family.  I had one son when my third nephew was born.  I had never seen anything so tiny.  He was mine, too, because he became an extension of my own family.  He was the middle child between my first two sons.  He was best friends with my second son and they couldn't get enough of each other.  They'd sit face to face and whisper and giggle for hours.  I've never seen a child that hated going to bed more than him.  I can still see him coming in the living room when he was supposed to be in bed with a grin on his face, asking for water, or something to eat, or what were we going to be doing the next day, or....on and on it would go. 

Now, they're grown men with their own families.  They lost their dad a couple of years ago and now are facing terminal illness with their mom, but have faced the adversities like real men.  They've stepped up to the plate.  They've made difficult decisions.  And I am proud to call them my nephews. 

They are my blood and they are my heart.  I love them so and am so thankful that God chose me to be their aunt.