Of Bastards, Babies and Soon To Be Men

When I was ten, my sister had her first child and I was very quickly no longer the baby. She was to eventually have four boys, and along with the birth of my brother’s son, there would be a whopping five children with less than two years apart in age living with me. My life went from relatively care free, centered around me, the baby, to a complete madhouse. This place became littered with action, making the entire place a much messier and louder place. Admittedly a happier one too, but chaotic nonetheless. I remember moving furniture to act as barricades for wandering and curious little hands. I remember skipping school to help babysit. I abandoned childhood and became an aunt, but the sacrifice was small in order to ensure great childhood’s for the ones after me. Joshua, Juan, Joey, Tony and Alex are so much more to me than nephews. I plan for them, try to mold them, introduce them to the music and books I love, so they too can be just as cool as I am one day.

Someone recently had the audacity to call them bastards. Bastards in the eyes of God because they were had out of wedlock. I cannot emphasize the rage I felt and there I was arguing with women thrice my age in defense of children that aren’t really mine. Except they are. I’ve had a hard time explaining this to people, mostly because I don’t want any children of my own. I have enough with them. I know it’d perhaps be different if I had my own, but that does not make the unconditional love I have for them any lesser. To be truthful, I know how much these kids depend on all of us: their own my mother, my other sister, their grandmother and I. There are five of them and that is a lot. They’re so close in age that they’ll all be entering college right after the other. I do think about the fact that, were I to have a child, it’d be that many more resources spread thin. Maybe one day I’ll want my own, I can’t say. Right now, though, I’m so much more concerned with the boys already here than worried about what one day could be.

One day I will be 30 and Joshua and Juan (the oldest ones) will be 20, and I am sure that I will still feel the same need I do now to protect them. I will never not feel responsible for them. These boys were a group effort, are a group effort. No matter where life takes me, it is one bond that will never be severed. When I moved away the first time, what hurt me the most was the idea that the youngest, Alex, would not remember me. As much as I missed the rest of my family, it was torture knowing they were growing up without me and that I was missing out on so much. The biggest pleasure in coming back has been being a part of their lives. Experiencing this, the biggest indicator of the the passage of time being their growth, has been a pleasure.