Little Wonders

Let me tell you what family is:

The note said: "Open this when you get to PA." I cheated. I opened it on the bus, figuring West Virginia was close enough to call it even. That thing had been burning a hole in my pocket since she'd slid it across the counter to me the morning I left. As I unfolded it, a friendship bracelet fell out. Silver, with a heart dangling from the end. On the paper she'd written: this is the part of my heart that belongs to you. I have the other half. Keep it for when you miss me. And I don't care what anyone says: you'll always be my sister.

I don't have the note anymore. It got wet in my pocket when I spilled my soda on the bus and disintegrated into little pieces. I was so upset that I cried. The bracelet I wore until it came apart. Then I put it in a little baggie and tucked it away in the corner of my top drawer, under the handkerchiefs from India, a tiny antique teacup half the size of my thumb, and two small Post-Its bearing the handwriting of a dear friend I hadn't seen in a long, long time. My little treasures. 

Five years later, we had yet to see each other again. I missed her wedding. I missed the birth of her child. There were times I wanted so badly to be there, participating in her life, helping her and laughing with her and crying with her, being a big sister. We spoke on the phone, but it was never enough. Then I got an unexpected windfall of cash due to a corrected bureaucratic error, and all I could think of was the sister I had missed so much, the brother-in-law I had never met, and the niece I had never held. Within the month, I was on a train to St. Paul.

As the train slowed for the last few miles into the Twin Cities, I worried and fretted. My appearance was all wrong. I weighed too much. What if I wasn't interesting anymore? What if hauling around all my mobility junk was more trouble than it was worth? What if, what if, what if? And then I saw them, sitting there in the depot, and everything was fine. More than fine. As I hugged my baby sister, standing at the baggage claim, for the first time in five years, I could not believe I wasn't crying. I saved that for later.

Holding my infant niece for the first time was an absolute wonder. I drank in everything: the big blue eyes, the tiny hands and feet, the adorable little pout, the gorgeous, slobbery, toothless smile. I loved running my hand over the fine blond fuzz on her head, stroking the silky skin on the back of her tiny knuckles. I could not get enough of her. She was perfect. During that visit, I held her every chance I got. I'd never really particularly liked babies, but one look at Evangeline and I fell in love.I cooed and trilled and grinned and played peek-a-boo, read her stories and learned "Tick tock, baby clock," the particular rocking motion that seems to calm her best.

Early in the morning following my sister's birthday, Evangeline began to cry. The rest of the house was asleep, so I got up and padded to the nursery, turning on the light in the unfamiliar room. The baby had rolled herself over and was grasping at the bars of the crib with her tiny little hands, trying to stand. She looked up at me and wailed. Tiny tears ran down her face. As quietly as I could, I went to the fridge and got a bottle. Back in the nursery I thought quickly, then kicked things well out of my way to make a path to the rocking chair. I had never walked with her before; I was too afraid of dropping her and causing her pain. But she needed me, and I wanted her to trust that I would be there. I didn't want her to see me walk away and not return -- though I'd send someone else, I wanted her to know she could count on me. I said a prayer. "Please, God, don't let me drop the baby." I picked her up as gently as I could and took the three  most careful steps of my life.

I settled into the rocking chair and offered her the bottle. Her little fingers curled around it. Her body stopped shaking. The crying subsided. After a few minutes, I reached out and very, very carefully wiped a tear from her face with my index finger. She reached up and wrapped her hand around it; that perfect baby hand around a single one of my big, clumsy, adult fingers. She looked up at me and smiled: a wet, formula-drool smile that seemed to say, "Hey, you're pretty cool." I thought how it hadn't even been a week since I'd officially met her, how much of her I'd already missed, how not one drop of the same blood ran in our veins. And none of these things mattered at all.

I never thought I'd get a little sister, let alone two of them. I never thought I'd get to hold and cherish nieces and nephews either, given the way things stand between me and Matt. As I sat there in that rocking chair murmuring quietly to that baby, a wave of gratitude and love hit me that might have knocked me over, had I been standing. Chelsey didn't have to call herself my sister, but she did. She didn't have to open the door to her life and let me in, but she did. She didn't have to let me be an aunt, but she did. She didn't have to love me, but she did. Just like Lou and Michelle and Biz, Vera and Becky and Kirat, Lee and Jim and Sara, writer of the "grace notes" on the Post-Its I have kept for so long. Whether they are still in my life or have gone, so many people have left fingerprints on my heart. Evangeline's are just the latest in a series of many, but still so very precious.

As I sat there rocking as quietly as I could in that creaky chair, a particular song made its way into my head. It's called "Little Wonders," by Rob Thomas, and I have always considered it the theme song of my crazy, big-hearted, open-armed, unconventional, amazing family that didn't have to be:

"And I don't mind,
If it's me you need to turn to:
We'll get by;
It's the heart that really matters in the end.
Time falls away, but these small hours,
These little wonders,
Still remain." 


I ran my thumb over the back of my niece's perfect little hand, and a tear ran into the corner of my mouth as I smiled while I cried. And that -- that feeling, that love, that gratitude and wonder and amazement -- that, above anything else, is the true meaning of family.