Living Arrows – 29/52

I have wanted the three of you to meet for so long.

Yesterday the stars aligned.  She was in London.  I was able to take a day off of work. 

I had promised her dinosaurs and alpaca in Crystal Palace Park but when the time came, could no longer navigate my way around this place of my childhood.  So we sat on the grass in the shade, and the woman who has shaped so many of my views surrounding motherhood finally met you, the children who made me a mother.

She lives one walk, two trains, a plane, a bus, a ferry and a taxi ride away, so I doubt that you will see much of her as you grow up.  I hope though, that the time that you do spend together will influence you as much as they have influenced me.  I hope that you will drive with her down small, twisty roads in the middle of the night, because someone somewhere has been arrested and his three pit bulls are in his car, and you need to get them to safety before the sun rises and they roast.  I hope that she will remind you to tread over the ants, because they too have tiny little lives.  I hope that the three of you will have one hundred conversations exploring all of the possibilities of the universe, that she will teach you to speak Greek, that through ‘her’ island and her farm you will discover a sense of freedom unavailable to you in London.

She is your auntie.  She is the family that we have chosen, the bonus family.  She bought you a t-shirt that says that she loves you, and made soap that will be gentle on your skin.  She held you and marvelled at how big you are, these babies that have until now existed only in her head and in rushed and infrequent telephone conversations.  She spoke to you in her language and you laughed, showing your pink gums, and spoke to her in yours.

One walk, two trains, a plane, a bus, a ferry and a taxi ride away, your extra family are thinking of you.