Deep inside my nephew's eyes A light graces the earth A joy and blessing within him A precious gem rare in quality He is a newfound beauty I am grateful to experience and when he grabs my fingers the thought crosses my mind, is this how it feels? To know all that he offers he’ll never understand He is forever ignorant of all the love he holds memories that I hold dear moments burned into my brain will vanish from his without a thought His name is one I could never forget and mine is one he will have to learn He will grow and find traces of my love scattered in his future and never know it's there Soft songs in the wind will he ever hear my love is there? So I write this for him and I hope he can learn to see that he is the love, the beauty of life, and the promise for tomorrow Deep in his eyes I know he is the sunshine
On Nov. 24, 2022, I met my nephew for the first time. He was only one year old, still couldn’t talk and ran so fast he bounced off the walls. He is my first and only nephew, and I adore him. My nephew is a ball of sunshine with rays that peak through his eyes and offer us light in a normally bleak world. Offering light to his father, his mother, his aunts and uncles, and he doesn’t even know it. The extent to which we love him, he doesn’t even see. When I was born, was this how it felt? Did I not see it? How could I? Did my uncles see me and feel their hope was restored? Was every moment spent together engraved in the fabric of their being? Could they never foresee a life where I don’t exist? Did they wonder who I would become when we next met? Did they hope I would learn to love them as fondly as they remember me? Because I do, and I suppose I always will.
MiC Columnist Karis Rivers can be reached at kvrivers@umich.edu.