Barrier of distance...

This week past week was a hard week for me. There are some people in my life that are very important to me and the only thing rivaling their importance at present is their distance from me. Occasionally that hits and it hits hard...

In particular this post speaks to my nephews and nieces. I am learning a lot about love from them, and perhaps about the human condition as well, you see, I really do love them. And when I say "love" I mean with all of my heart. I honestly didn't realize how much I did. I think part of me thought of myself as "just" Uncle Brad, and indeed that is a correct description of who I am, but the "just" is not so accurate. I thought of the word because I always thought that I would love my own children, and indeed I am sure that I will, but I didn't think it would be quite like THIS with children that weren't my own. Keeping in mind that over the years I have known and cherished literally hundreds of relationships with hundreds of children and youth, but this is different. I cry when I think of them, as if my mind and my heart cannot deal with the thought of the separation. And that is where the confusion starts, you see, I didn't know I could love someone this much that I couldn't have a relationship with the way that I had thought of relationships. In relationships you communicate, you endure together, you fight, you forgive, you earn things like trust and respect and you come out of that with love. But it takes work. This is not the case with these young ones. The love has nothing to do either with what I do or what they do. In fact, I would be hard pressed to describe the "relational dynamics" that we have... It is a bond that seems to exist for its own sake.

But here is the rub... Toddlers/babies are different from older folks, and this is what makes it so hard... It is easy to stay friends with adults. There are myriad ways to communicate and "stay in touch"... connect. This is not the case with my nieces and nephews. There is a good chance that Noah, Elena and Kira have no idea that I exist. That doesn't affect my love for them, but it does make my absence harder. As far as I know, I cannot even connect with them in their memories, but I could in reality if I was there. If only I could hold them, touch them, feed them, simply be with them and build a foundation, not only of love or trust, but of knowledge. Distance is hard... And then there is Aiden and Shiri. Thanks to my beautiful sisters, these kids can recognize me, and know to at least associate the visual image of me with the words "Uncle Brad", even if they don't fully know what that title means. I think they know me, and that they generally like me, and at that age, that translates to love on their part. (It is also aided by the fact that they live in a family culture where all they know is love so that they can immediately accept and "love" anyone that is introduced into that culture, such as "Uncle Brad". But I digress...) The problem with these two comes from the fact that they are as yet not at an age where they can grasp the somewhat abstract idea that the disembodied voice they hear when their mothers or Gram gives them the phone is not only someone they know, but is in fact the very person of "Uncle Brad". Uncle Brad is known by who he is. He is a person, they know what he looks like. He is not simply the voice in the phone. He is the man in the picture. The guy that wrestled with them, hugged them, read to them. But hey, the voice is cool. It was only just recently that I finally heard speech from their end on the phone, and it both gave me hope, and caused me pause (and inspired this post). It hit me that they didn't know it was me, that is why they had previously not spoken. And indeed, even now, the speech was more a reflection of their newfound ability to express themselves through speech then an actual desire to communicate with the specific entity of "Uncle Brad". They just wanted to talk, like they see their parents do, mostly because there is an adult near them telling them to talk. But as I said, it did give me hope. It is a progression, and soon, with these all too brief "conversations", their continued development and the all too infrequent visit they will grow and so will our relationship, and soon they will be able to know they are loved, even though I am not there. And they will be able to express that I am loved right back, and more importantly, do so with a knowledge of what they are expressing. Until then it is hard sometimes, and indeed, I am sure that even if/when that time comes, it will not necessarily make the experience of the distance much easier... but there is hope.

At any rate, I love you Aiden, Shiri, Elena, Kira and Noah (and Isaac) and I miss you every day...

Love,
Uncle Brad

Listening to the album Boxer by The National