I looked at your picture on social media today.
‘Facebook stalked you’.
That’s what we say these days when we look up people we no longer have a connection with, isn’t it?
Like archaeologists trying to reconstruct an artefact, we painstakingly hunt down fragments to inspect. We know it’s no longer reparable, yet still we insist on surveying the old shine, fingering the sharp edges we know will cut.
I reconciled the image I still had of you as a child with the woman I saw looking at me.
You were a toddler when we met.
Born 1988.
I was just a school girl of 15.
I was going out with your uncle, your mum was his big sister.
We had nowhere to go to be together back then. My mother wouldn’t let him in my house, his house was way too volatile…….
“Come round here and sit with us”
she’d say.
So we did.
For two teenage sweethearts, it was an offer we couldn’t refuse.
Sometimes we’d just chat and watch TV with you both, other times we’d babysit while she had a well deserved night out.
We loved playing house with you. I would sing you nursery rhymes and read you stories, he would pull faces and do silly voices to make you laugh.
Sometimes I’d brush your hair, how your first brown curls soon turned to enviable princess tresses, your eyes shining like pieces of jet.
I remember when I came round wearing a wig once and it scared you, you didn’t know who I was.
“It’s only Aunty Julie!”
Your mum said reassuringly.
She started to say it often.
Refer to me as ‘Aunty Julie’.
Was I your Aunty?
I’d thought that only happened when you married someone. I was just a teenager. I confess it made me feel grown up, a real adult with a niece. Plus, you were such a sweetie, I wanted to be your Aunty
Soon enough, I was a student studying childcare and you became my guinea pig for everything! I’d do all my observations on you, noting down my thoughts on your interactions with your toys and the language you used. Your best loved game was ‘school’, you would sit all your stuffed animals and dolls in lines and boss them about, raising your voice and wagging your finger. You were so funny. Scruffy old Moppy the teddy bear was your favourite.
Your reception year, I went to see you in your Christmas school play. There you were dressed as a snowman singing; “Five little snowmen fat, each with a funny hat”, right at the front. I was so proud.
You loved Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles.
Remember when you got lost in the department store and told the security guard your name was April O Neil? I do. It made me laugh so hard at the time when I heard that story. That was you all over - cute as a button and full of imagination and mischief.
If I ever have a little girl, I hope she’s like this I used to think. One day when I was out with your uncle, someone did think I was your mother and how I blushed!
I moved to Leeds and I took you out for the day in the big city and spoiled you rotten. I bet you were six or seven. Sounds daft but I wanted to inspire you. I was at University and wanted to open your eyes to other ways of life away from our grim hometown. Took you on the train, bought you lunch and treats and just enjoyed basking in your sunny little glow. I imagine I told you some 90s Girlpower hogwash like ‘you can be anything you want to be’
Forgive me if I said that, because I believed it myself at the time too.
I moved away.
Further this time.
A different country.
You wrote to me.
Twice.
I never wrote back.
Your uncle and I had split up by this point and I figured it was for the best, that it would get confusing, me hovering around when…….well…….what was I exactly?
Who was I to you?
Your uncle’s old flame?
I wasn’t blood.
I held your little handwritten letters and thought ‘I have to let her go’.
And I did.
And it hurt.
“I’m no one to her”
I reasoned.
I justified being brutal, cutting off a child. Being ‘cruel to be kind’ .
Was it kind though?
I admit, a cynical post break-up part of me thought; she needs to learn that not everyone stays forever.
And whilst that’s true, I shouldn’t have been the one to teach it.
Breaking contact should have been your call, not mine.
You always loved fairytales.
I see social media pictures of you with your wedding dress, and later your baby boy, and I wonder if yours has come true.
Back to the ‘stalking’ term.
I feel it’s a bad fit for what I do when I go looking for you. It sounds sneaky and nefarious, doesn’t it? Like you’re secretly hoping someone has come a cropper.
There must be a better way of articulating when we look someone up with only good intentions, to see their face for the joy, remember their warmth and how they made us feel.
When we wish only happiness for them.
That, my lovely girl, is how I feel about you.
PS: I hope you appreciated that piece. Cried my eyes out writing it, thinking of her. I know many people have similar experiences. Children that come into our lives whom we bond with but don’t stay for whatever reason. And as adults, maybe we remember adults who came into our lives when we were kids who didn’t or couldn’t stick around. If you can relate to that, love to you x
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