Hannah

My third niece was recently born to my sister – her first child, my first blood-related niece (the others, precious to me, are my husband’s sister’s children).  I am spoiled for sons, spoiled for nieces – nary a daughter nor nephew in sight!

We are far flung, my nuclear family of 7, and so we followed her progress via texts.  First, there were the check-in texts on the many, many long days after her due date sailed by with no labor.  Then, when she was nearly two weeks over and beginning to suffer a few complications, there were the cheering texts when the midwives decided it was time to induce.  Then, there were her chipper updates during the early part of labor, soon replaced by her husband’s updates when the labor become incredibly rough incredibly quickly.

And at long last, came this:

And this:

Her name is Hannah Beatrice – little Shakespeare love, after my own heart.  All are well – the complications were of the type instantly cured by removal of the wee parasite who now spends her days wrapped in blue and pink blankets and adored from afar by her many aunts and uncles.  My sister is a mother, which is a neat thing to behold.  Now, of course, I have lost a fresh and energetic helper at our holiday family gatherings – instead of tossing my children at my always-enthusiastic sister and running away for a nap, now I have to compete with her for the babysitting help of our 3 remaining childless siblings.  But I think we timed it well – we can give Hannah to Jack, who is now old enough to be useful, and then the 3 childless siblings only have Liam and Craig to manage.  A fair allocation of resources, I feel.

It is an odd thing, this flinging wide and springing apart of families.  The rending of support systems, the keen loss of intimacy that comes from lives lived in close proximity.  We do not have the familiarity and closeness of a casual, last-minute dinner visit, of being someone’s backup plan when the kids are sick, of the countless little obligations that would bind us together if we were only close enough to perform them.  There are benefits, no doubt, of having your own space to grow into something new, grow out of what your siblings think you are (don’t we all revert, as soon as we get together, to those old roles!)  But it’s times like these when I feel the pang and pull, the sighing, passing wish for a more stable homestead from whence none of us managed to move too far.

Instead, we have these cursed blessings we call cell phones.  We reach through the technology to tough a picture of a chubby cheek, imagine the feel of the downy soft newborn hair.  We revel, along with her parents, in the squeaks and smiles and weak bleating cries, captured on video and texted in seconds.  For this, I am grateful.  I gobble it up.  My girl, my darling, my sweet wee baby niece.  I am so happy you’re here.