Love from a distance

Today, I was babysitting my nephew and hanging out with my dad. While Daegan napped, I got on to do some work on the computer and was pleasantly surprised when my sister in Chicago signed on to Skype. We talked for a while, and then she sent me the message "James would like to see you." Apparently, my nephew recognized the Skype message sounds and was eager to see who mommy was talking to. He uses Skype to talk to grandma regularly and his dad when he's away.

I jumped on my dad's computer, which has a camera, and was rewarded by a very excited nephew when my face appeared on the screen. He clapped and laughed. Then he kept looking at his mom like, "Do you see this? That's my aunt!"

Every time I talked, he would laugh and laugh. He grabbed his blankie and started playing, "Where'd the baby go" with me via the internet. I was marveling at the miracle of technology that I could play such an old game with my nephew from such a distance. He's too young to talk, so the telephone is no fun, but being able to see each other's faces is such a gift. About the time I'm thinking what a miracle this is, I make kissy noises at him (I'm known in our family as the kissy aunt because since they were born, I have smothered the boys in kisses. They both love it now and lean in for more kisses.) He leaned in towards the computer screen for kisses. A meltdown quickly followed when he realized he couldn't actually receive my kisses. His mommy tried to substitute her own, but it didn't work. His frustration grew to heartbreak, and we had to say good-bye and sign off. Technology is a miracle, but it still can't make kissy aunt truly appear in his living room.

Baby Pics

As I was going through my Snapfish account the other day, I found a whole collection of childhood pictures of my sisters and me that I had scanned in as part of a mother's day present a few years ago. I couldn't help noticing how much the next generation of Bennett babies resembles the previous.

Aunt Arvilla (left) Daegan (right)

Aunt Patricia (left) Daegan (right)

Mommy Leslee (left) Daegan (right)

Practical Magic

I feel like I spend many of my days dealing in the business of broken hearts. Sometimes it's a true love shattered at 12. Sometimes it's a student who's been called an awful name. Sometimes it's a parent recently deported. I often find myself without the right words or tools to fix these hearts. I offer what love I can, and hope it's enough to get them through that day.

Tonight I found myself at my sister's, pouring out my own recent heartbreak. During the course of the evening, we started reminiscing about childhood. A story came up about my youngest sister. She had a few unique habits that still reduce her older sisters to hysterical laughter. For instance, she loved to get Mom's cinnamon tic-tacs, eat them until they got too hot for her two-year-old mouth, and then spit them out. More times than we could count there would be a trail of half-eaten candy down the hallway.

One of her other habits had to do with injuries. She loved band-aids, loved wearing them, putting them on her dolls, and decorating with them. Our other sister reminded me that we always had to have the plain ones because Mom couldn't afford to keep the cartoon ones in stock.

My mom also had this really amazing spray that had an anesthetic in it. It was a miracle on cuts, burns, and scrapes. We called it the "magic spray." Often, our youngest sister would pretend to be injured. Mom or I would put her up on the counter, where we would notice nothing was wrong. She would be crying real tears and insist on the "magic spray." We learned to grab the bottle, make the hissing sound with our mouths, put on a beloved band-aid, and kiss the "injured" spot. She would wipe her tears away, kiss us on the cheek, say a quick "I love you", and return to playing.

For a brief moment, I wished there was a "magic spray" for our grown-up injuries. They seem to cut deeper and take longer to heal. But even as we told the story, I received a sweet text message from a close friend, and my sister continued to make me laugh. I suddenly realized with relief that the magic was never in the spray.