How time flies

My oldest nephew turned 16 last week. 16!! How does that happen so quickly? Let me reflect for a few minutes and tell you about Tyler and my relationship with him.

My oldest brother and his girlfriend had been dating. I didn't like her all that much because up until that time I was very close to my brother and I kind of felt like she was taking part of him away from me. In 1990 she became pregnant with her first baby and on September 19, 1990 my first nephew, Tyler, was born. It was several days before I first got to see him but when I finally did it was love at first sight. It was at that moment that my relationship with my sister in law, Sue, changed, too. I immediately had a newfound respect and love for her as the Mother of my beautiful new nephew. From that day on she and I became very close and I considered her to be the sister that I never had.

While attending school at the University of Florida I would drive to Orlando just to spend time with Tyler. He was the light of my life. A year later I was living in Orlando and it made me so happy to be able to spend a lot of time with him. One of the things that I always loved to do with Tyler was go to the park. I would pick him up in my little Honda Civic hatchback, buckle him in his car seat and off we would go. Just the two of us. Tyler loved the ducks. He would run after them with the biggest grin on his face. He always had the cutest smile and his giggle was contagious. I would spend hours at the park with him and then we would usually go to McDonalds to get a cheeseburger before I took him home. I'm so thankful for the time that I lived there in Orlando so that I could be there with him while he was little. My relationship with him was priceless and I was so proud to be his Aunt. I dreamt that my children would some day be as loving as he was.

Tyler had a very special name for me. He couldn't quite say Michelle so it came out sounding like "lerl". I loved it and I would sometimes ask him who I was just to hear him say it. I can still hear him saying it as vividly as he did back then.

So now he's 16. He's legal to drive. So maybe now if I could be with him he could drive me to go somewhere instead of me driving him. I wish we could. I would do anything to be able to spend time with Tyler the way we used to be able to do.

It was because of Tyler that Sue and I became close. To this day I adore her and now that we live so far away from one another I miss her terribly. They live in Oregon.

So, happy belated birthday to my first nephew. This little spot in my heart will always be yours.

"Lerl"