Cry Baby in Current Events

I started crying on my ride home from work today. I was reminiscing about my niece. It’s a long back story but once upon a time, I was living with my sister and her husband when they had their firstborn. Everybody got to work full-time with our arrangement. I stayed home with my niece during the day while my sister and her husband went to work. Then I would do evening shifts. It was like working two full-time jobs. It was hard. They had a small window where my sister was expected to be back at work but Madalyn, my niece, didn’t start daycare for a couple more months. I owed them big time so I stepped up.

On day one I hadn’t even changed a diaper in my life. I had put them all on backward, oops! Putting her down for that first nap ever was the moment that changed everything. I was rocking her in my arms while she looked up at me with those drowsy eyes. I was no longer the most important person in the world. She was all I cared about. She was all that mattered, period.

She eventually got to start daycare. I woke up with her and dropped my niece off at the daycare every morning, my sister and her husband had very early starts. It just worked out. Miserable as it made me for never getting to sleep in.

The day my niece started a new daycare with the big kids was the same day that her father started to work out of town for weeks on end. She was two at the time. That morning she had a panic attack. She would not stop crying and hyperventilating on the whole ride there. I could not just abandon her in a building full of strangers. There was a mini nature trail right next door so I took her there and helped her breathe. I helped calm her down before taking her inside. She put on her brave face and that was the last time she cried on the way to daycare.

I bawled my eyes randomly off and on while writing this so far. I keep picturing her face looking up at me. Hearing her little footsteps running around. Her voice learning to talk. Her getting excited with me. Her laughing with me. Her tantrums with me. Her playing with me. Singing, dancing and just all of it.

I’ve been in this apartment for a year now. Prior to that, I was having the most intense years of my life. Everything fell apart on me. I had been feeling sad since this past weekend. I had my niece and nephew over to babysit. I usually feel sad after a visit but this time around is different. I am crying because I never gave myself the chance to grieve moving away from her. I had my feelings turned off because of everything else going on. It was, of course, not easy to leave her. I had such a strong bond with her. It just hit me now.

She is of course alive and well. The world is going to hell and she and my nephew are all I think about whenever I get passionate about politics. They’re the only reason I even care about anything at all.

Anyway, I have a headache now from crying so hard. I’ll have to make plans again soon to visit my niece and nephew. Turns out, I’m not actually dead inside.

Madalyn is a bright one. Since day one. She was strong enough to prop her head up. By seven months she was walking and talking. She skipped crawling. She is very empathic, I can tell that she is an old soul. She didn’t even know how to speak yet and she would cry whenever someone got hurt in her shows. Dora was her favourite show. Dooka, that was her first word. She would say dooka dooka dooka. She pointed at Dora once and said it and I realized that she was saying Dora.

She’s six now, she is absolutely brilliant. Everything she learns she teaches her little brother, Vincent. He is a con-19 baby and is a little delayed but he is catching up fast because of his big sister. He turns three next month and knows all of his colours, his numbers and letters because of his big sister. His whole life was in lockdown. On Tuesday we can stop muzzling children to protect non-victims from a non-virus (germs don’t cause disease). It’s hard to have faith these days but I hang on for the children.

This is the song that I used to wake my niece up with every morning. She would run out of bed and come dance.

I was talking with my sister about having my niece over for movies nights. I will buy an air mattress this weekend. We can set it up in the living room and watch movies and binge eat. Moana was our favourite movie. It always makes me want to cry. There are lots of parks around here I can take her to. Assuming spring happens. My city is buried under four feet of snow. Our snowbanks are up to eight feet tall. Anyway, she’s not afraid to go out and make friends at parks. She’s a brave one, always challenging herself to do things. Even when it scares her and brings her to tears she will do it. She’s very much a Leo. Her hot-headed little brother is an Aires. He was barely walking when I was asked to move out. Anyway! I meant to work out when I got home and instead I ended up crying my eyes out. Oops!