Happy 18th birthday to a special niece

When my sister Maureen and her husband, Eric, told me they were expecting a baby, I couldn’t imagine more exciting news. The baby would be my parents’ first grandchild and my first niece or nephew.

This little one was due in April 2003, and we couldn’t wait. I went with Maureen to a doctor’s appointment and listened to the tiny heart beating inside this precious little life. Was it a boy? A girl?

I wouldn’t know until the baby was born, and I was so excited.

It was a beautiful spring day, and I was typing away at my desk at work when the phone rang. It was my mother calling to tell me that I had a brand-new niece—and everyone was doing well. We congratulated each other, and I rushed around the office letting my colleagues know that the baby was here! I had a niece!

The whole world sparkled just a little more.

My parents rushed to Pittsburgh to see their granddaughter. “Holding her for the first time was just like holding Maureen when she was a baby,” my father told me.

When I finally had the chance to meet her myself, I admired her perfect lashes, the downy fuzz on her head, her sweet little fingers and toes, and her blue eyes that took you in with quizzical curiosity. What a miracle she was. I held her in awe.

Since then, I’ve met and held my other little nieces and nephews—and my own sons, of course. Each time I am filled with a sense of absolute wonder and gratitude. How great is our God that He sends us babies to love and care for and watch over as they grow.

There is something truly special about that first new little one in a family, and this little one was an absolute joy. We marveled at how she ate and yawned and clapped her hands and slept. We would drop anything to play whatever game she had in mind. As she grew into a toddler who was hungry for knowledge, I tried to expand my dinosaur vocabulary so we could have richer conversations. I never could quite keep up.

When Maureen and Eric told us they were having a second child, I wondered how the new big sister would cope with that transition. Still, at 18 months, she navigated her brother’s arrival with as much grace as a toddler can. A year or two later when she declared she wanted pet rats, her father told her she needed to wait a few years, probably thinking she would forget. But she never forgot, and she became an enthusiastic rat owner—and eventually persuaded me that they were ideal pets, as well.

Now I realize that tiny little girl who used to have polysyllabic dinosaur names rolling off her tongue is turning 18. In the fall, she’ll go to college—and I’ve been delighted each time my sister has texted to tell me she’s been accepted somewhere else. I was especially excited when she told us she had made her college decision.

Her future is wide open and we’ll get to watch as it unfolds.

What a blessing to witness a tiny baby girl grow into a courageous, compassionate young woman, an insightful and skilled poet, a devoted daughter and sister, and a passionate advocate for social and racial justice. I’m so very proud of the person she is. And I can’t wait to see the person she will become.

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