The Purple, Patterned Shirt

           

           I have a purple patterned shirt that I bought about a year ago.  It isn't a name-brand shirt, it’s just a shirt from Wal-Mart; there really isn't anything special about it.  But I love that shirt. Because that is the shirt that I had to have my sister get on an emergency trip to Wal-Mart, to replace the one that my infant nephew pooped ALL OVER during his very first trip to Sam’s Club.

           

            T loved Sam’s Club.  He loved the lights, the colors, the sounds, the people passing by and cooing over him.  C and I brought his car seat into the store with us, but I couldn't bear to make him stay in it, and I carried him on my shoulder through the store.  Before long, however, he was making raucous, obvious sounds in his diaper region, and C and I picked up the pace a little after every noise. 

           

            “Don’t put him down in the car seat, it will go everywhere!” C insisted with the trepidation of a mother facing a bomb of a diaper and possibly permanently stained baby goods.

          

           *Insert ungainly, adult-like noise from T’s diaper region here.*

            

            Without looking at me, C exclaimed, “We've gotta get out of here!” and she and I started laughing uncontrollably as we took off at a dead sprint down the next aisle, me with a little T pressed against me, her pushing a full, tank-like cart. 

            

           While she checked out, I took T to the car.  The minute I took him off my shoulder, the damage was evident.  Yellow, damp stains spread all over the front of his little onesie and my chest.  I stifled giggles (and gags) as I cleaned him up. When C got to the car she just said, “Oh no!” and laughed. 

           

           “Auntie didn't know she needed a change of clothes, too, Boop!” I said as I pulled a new onesie over T’s head, and C unloaded her cart into the back of my Forester.

            

             We had other stops planned, and so there was no question; I needed a new shirt.  C ran into Wal-Mart, and before long, I was scrunched down in my car, pulling the purple, patterned shirt over my head.

           

             I tell stories like this a lot when I am out in public.  The majority of the time, I am met with laughs, smiles, and similar stories, but sometimes I am met with laughs and “Wait until you have your own!” I have even caught myself saying things like, “He’s just my nephew, I can’t imagine when I have my own!” 

And then I thought, what does that mean?  Does it mean T is a place-holder, just a little someone to bide my time until “my own”?  Does it mean my own children will replace T (and other nieces and nephews when they come) someday?  Does it mean auntie-hood is just a place on the way to mommy-hood? 

We live in a world where extended family is often more of a commodity than a staple.  Many of my friends grew up not seeing their aunts and uncles more than once or twice a year, if that.  Many children, more and more as time goes on, feel as if they have no one to turn to, no trusted adult to help them in hard times.  I am incredibly blessed, in that I was raised with my extended family close by, and that my nephew is currently being raised with me, and other members of his extended family, close by.  And this made me realize: I have an amazing, God-given gift of AUNTIE-HOOD, a “hood” in its own right. 

Yes, someday, I will also have “my own” children.  They will lay against me, fleecy little blobs, just breathing and sleeping, like T did in his first days of life.  But they won’t be him.  More days will come when I am covered in damp, yellow poop stains, but they won’t be his.  When I have “my own” children, I will be their Mommy, with all the wonder and joy that that title brings, but I won’t get to be their Auntie.  That wonder and joy will belong to someone else. 

Nieces and nephews aren't place-holders, auntie-hood is not a pit-stop on the road to anywhere.  Every role that is played in a child’s life is significant in some way, shape, or form, no matter what that child calls you, no matter what “hood” you encounter them in.   Every “hood” has something to be discovered, has something about it that no other “hood” can offer.  No one else can inhabit T’s “auntie-hood” quite like I do, quite like his Aunties M, S, and J do, just like no one but C can inhabit his “mumma-hood”.  And that is really cool.

Someday, I will look back on these days of pure, unadulterated auntie-hood, and I will smile, just as I do now while I am living them.  I will remember every day that I stopped on my way home from work to see T, I will remember the games we play, and I will remember the forts we inevitably will build, the treasures we will find.  Someday, I will tell my own children funny stories about T pooping on me in Sam's Club when he was a baby, and he will be nearby telling me to stop, because he will be embarrassed.

And I will own more purple, patterned shirts.  But they won’t be this one.