Trust

Dear Nephew,

While I was sitting on the couch today, my therapist asked me, “So how do you feel about the care you recieved?” She was referring to the wee vacation I took last week. In hospital.

I replied that it was all fine and that the doctors were professional and the hospital was fine-”BUT” I said, “I didn’t feel comforable with the nurses.”

“Why ever not?” she asked.

“Because hello? They were MY AGE. How can someone MY AGE TAKE CARE OF ME? I didn’t really trust them.”

“Are you saying you don’t trust yourself?”

“No, off course not.”

“That’s interesting.”

Nephew, because I am your aunt and because you have three uncles that will tell you to be strong and fight, I’m probably going to sugar coat a lot of things in your life. But today I am going to be honest. Life is going to be tough and without meaning to people and situations will take your life and lift it up into a spinning tornado until you can’t feel your feet, until you don’t know which way is up or which way is down. Then as suddenly as it started, you will fall-PLONK!-and left to sort out the mess for yourself. You might, if it suits you, choose to go to therapy instead. And if you do? You will learn that the “That’s interesting” comment of your therapist is ten times more terrifying than that spinning tornado of doom.

Because ‘That’s interesting” actually means that you have just revealed an important truth, that only SHE CAN SEE, and you know that you have to see it too, but it is like a blind spot in a car and you JUST CAN’T MOVE YOUR HEAD IN THAT DIRECTION.

“But I survived so I guess they were fine!” I said dramatically and swiftly changed the subject.

But then later, much later, I went over the conversation in my head and it was as if a light went on in some part of my brain. My head turned and I could see straight through into the blind spot.

I didn’t trust the nurses because they were my age. Ergo, I don’t trust myself. But I am fine! They did their job remarkably.

Cue head turning and light flooding.

THAT MEANS SO CAN I.

Nephew, today you are two years old. In the last month you have grown so confident. You climb and you run and you throw yourself off the couch onto pillows shouting with an uncanny DiCaprio-like roar  “I’m the king of the world.” Every time you do it I want to tell you to be careful. I want to protect you. I want to very nearly stop you.

But I promise from now on when I look at that smile and when I look at that unadulterated joy and excitement in your eyes every time you achieve something new, I will stop cringing. I will smile.

Because even though, you are 25 years younger than me you already trust yourself.

And that makes you pretty damn special in my eyes.

I love you.

Mama Yo