My mother had the chance to practice being a mother long before I ever existed. She was only fifteen when her sister gave birth to Alex — the nephew everyone had been waiting for as if he were a miracle. It was the age when other girls were discovering makeup, going out with friends, dreaming about their future romances. But she found her purpose in a crib: in a blond baby with wide, curious eyes who looked at her as if she were his entire world.
My mother no longer played with dolls. She had a real child in her arms, and he slept with his tiny fingers tangled in her hair, his warm breath resting on her neck. When he grew older, she took him everywhere. She played with him, cared for him, gave him attention and patience — everything her tired sister didn’t always manage to offer. She was for him what many mothers struggle to be for their own children: a shelter, a constant, an unshakable presence.
Years passed, and my mother built her own family. Then I came along, the new bright center of her universe. And yet Alex never disappeared from her heart. She often invited him over, and I remember those moments as if they were old photographs: him playing with me on the carpet, me running after him in the park, laughing, holding his hand, feeling protected by the older boy I adored.
Then life changed — as it always does. Visits grew rare. He was busy with his own child, and my mother was getting sicker. In her final year, Alex didn’t come to see her even once. It broke my heart, but I learned a hard truth early: you can’t force people to show up, no matter how loudly your soul calls for them.
He came to the funeral though, together with his wife — the same woman who had loudly commented on my father wearing sunglasses. As if it were any of her business. She didn’t know — or didn’t care to know — that they were photochromic prescription lenses. People often find comfort in petty cruelty when they lack joy elsewhere.
Then followed twenty years of silence.
Twenty.
We met again only when my grandmother was very sick. I saw him at the hospital and felt a strange shock. In place of the boy I remembered stood a tired man, older, rounder, with deep lines carved by life. He looked at me with hostility and didn’t even speak at first. But after my grandmother died, something shifted. We started talking, visiting, remembering. We talked about my mother.
It felt so good to have him back that it was like recovering not just a person, but a piece of my childhood. My dear cousin. Returned, finally.
Then winter came. His son had a civil wedding. We weren’t invited — they said they wanted something small. I tried to understand. I didn’t make a tragedy out of it.
But then came the wedding. And what a wedding… A grand spectacle, exactly the kind his mother-in-law dreamed of. I already knew the price of the menu, the decorations, the over-the-top details they wanted. It was an event built not to celebrate love, but to impress — with the highlight being the mother–son dance.
When we received the invitation, I said we would probably come, but confirm later. Life, with its bitter humor, brought several unexpected expenses. One day I realized we simply couldn’t afford it. We could barely still afford our summer vacation — the only thing I was holding onto, the only space where my wounded mind could quiet down, given my severe anxiety, panic disorder, and debilitating panic attacks that steal days out of my life.
So I said we wouldn’t attend because we didn’t have the money.
Simple. True.
Then my cousin’s wife called. She asked, coldly, if we were coming. I explained politely. She wasn’t impressed. She kept questioning me, and eventually asked, with an accusatory tone, whether we were still going on vacation this year.
I said yes.
Because vacation, for me, is not a luxury. It’s a safety valve. A breath of air. A time when my body doesn’t shake, when I don’t sweat for hours, when I’m not constantly expecting disaster.
But for her, the only thing that mattered was that I had money for a vacation.
Not for the wedding.
And that, in her eyes, was… wrong.
Inside, I had hoped they would say: “Come anyway! You’re his aunt. You don’t need to bring money.”
Just as my best friend once welcomed me to her wedding — without expectations, without gifts, only with her heart open. I never forgot that, and I never will.
But no. My family said nothing. Nothing warm, nothing human. Only reproaches dressed as theatrical tears. His wife told me, in her melodramatic voice, that she cried a lot and that I “did an ugly thing” by refusing.
The wedding came and went. Then came a message. From him.
He wrote that I didn’t deserve to speak my mother’s name.
That she would have never allowed me to miss the wedding.
That she loved him the most.
Him.
As if I should feel guilty for not placing his son’s wedding at the center of my life.
That day, Alex disappeared from my life forever.
I closed the conversation, blocked him, and that was the end of it.
I believe — or try to believe — that I’ve forgiven him. For years, I missed him. For years, I wondered what he was doing, if he was okay, if he was happy.
Now I rarely think about him.
Like tonight, when a memory hit hard enough to put it into words.
But I don’t miss him anymore.
I don’t wonder if he’s well.
Blood turns to water once in a lifetime.
In my case, twice.
But the story of the other “water” will have to wait for another time.