Spanky

In Which Akiva Laments the Inevitable Changes in Life

See, I AM upkeeping my blog, as promised...

So I had a really great day today. I went to Zoo with Becky and my newphew Adeev. We had a great time. You have to understand that my four-year old nephew (nicknamed Spanky) is ridiculously bright for his age. I'm not just saying that as a proud uncle, it's actually true. He is actually sometimes TOO smart for his age. He could read in English and Hebrew at the age that most kids were jsut learning their English alphabet. He taught himself the American Sign Language alphabet before he was four.

So at the Zoo he would read the information signs about each animal about thei diets and habitats, while other kids his age where like "I like ducks!" Hah. The other adults around were amazed by his reading, as was Becky. I was so fucking proud.

Then on the train home he was so tired and he was falling asleep on my lap and I was telling him that I was flying home on Monday morning and he asked "When are you coming back?". I had to whisper "I don't know" in order to not cry. I think he could tell how sad I was because he was like 'You can write me letters!" I held him so fucking close and didn't want to let go ever. I wanted to stay on that train with him in my lap forever.

You see it didn't hit me till then. My plan is to get a decent job this summer so i can stay in Toronto. I just feel that this place is less and less my home. And every summer more and more of my friends are not here or immersed in work. I just think its time to leave this place, a place that I love and have spent a good (and I do mean good) 15 years of my life, behind.

But as I was talking to Colleen on MSN, in my good mood from the day, and was telling her about the day at the zoo then suddenly BOOM...I started majorly bawling. Like...tears pouring out and heavy sobbing. It was like my tear ducts made the realization before I did, because I was actually in a good mood and it shocked me. But just then i realized that as of Monday, i would be quite absent from my nephews life.

You have to understand that I helped raise my nephew in his first two years of life and every summer. I picked him up from daycare, watched him in the afternoons, took him for walks, told hims stories and watched him develop into the amazing and unique kid he is today. If you have ever met him you will know the spell he casts on people and they just are so endeared by him.

And I will no lonfer be a part of that. Phone doesn't really work because the kid just views it as talking to inanimate object (which he is correct about) and views it for the pale imitation of human contact that it is. So really...I won't talk to him for a LONG time. That breaks my heart. I can't even think about it.

Here I go again, with the crying.

Akiva