On this Sunday afternoon I am at my sister Sara’s home, watching her nestle her youngest grandson as he sleeps soundly on her shoulder after his afternoon feeding.
Fred is my newest greatnephew. He joins the others of his generation who have given me another chance to snuggle, squish,andkisschubbycheeks. Just this past week another nephewsentphotostohisaunts andunclesaboutanewdelivery arriving in next April. My siblings and I had strong bonds with our parents’ siblings. Our aunts and uncles wrote letters, flew or drove to Texas for visits, and hosted us on our family vacations. I learned from the best how to nurture this special family dynamic.
My nieces and nephews are more than physical extensions of my brothers and sisters. Christopher and Michael have been the boys I did not have. I spent their youngster time at ballparks or golf courses or halftime shows and drove cross country with each on epic road trips when they were college students. Our golf games, though few, are now famous for brotherly smack talk and their aunt pretending to be an Irish PGA commentator in the middle of their backswings. But the mundane history we share is my favorite. I am the one who taught them how to go to the back yard when everyone is in the front yard saying good-bye after a big holiday meal and hurl leftover burned rolls over the rooftolandontheunsuspecting relatives. The art of the ambush is still a family tradition thanks to my auntie skills.
Early on, my nieces were the built-in family playmates for my two girls. Today, they are each other’s confidantes. It is easy to see in them the best of my brother and my sisters. These beautiful adult nieces and I now share music and film appreciation, wickedly delightful senses of humor, heartfelt conversations about family relationships, favorite sports teams, and stories about their parents when we were brothers and sisters growing up in Snyder, Texas. I’ve also come to realize these “kids”—including my two daughters—are wise beyond years from where I was at their ages.
My niece Katie will leave in a bit to get Fred and his brother home to Dad for their Sunday eveningroutine.Assheloadsup her two little boys, I remember the times I put her in her car seat to take her home to her parents after Camp Katie in Gail America.
What did she remember today? That time I took her with me to Jackson, Tennessee, to watch her cousin Julie’s college basketball team play. We stopped in Memphis, drove down Beale Street, and somewhere along the way her Aunt Sue Jane bought her a green bunny. She named that bunny B. B. (King) because of that little side trip.
Being a great-aunt reminds methatbeinganauntcontinues to be a great gig.
Snyder, Texas, native Sue Jane Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher whose thought-provoking commentary appears occasionally in several West texas newspapers, including TheTexasSpurandTheCaprock Courier.
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