My Heroes Surround Me

My niece Alisa and I have always had a special bond. I really can’t explain our relationship. It’s not as if I love her more or less than my other nieces and nephews, it’s just different. I feel a stronger urge to protect her than I feel with the others. Don’t get me wrong, if anyone was to harm one of them, I’d lose all compassion I have for humanity if I caught them; but with Alisa it’s just different.

When she was young, her father, though undeserving of the title, walked out of her life. One of his last conversations with Alisa was to explain that he had a new baby and didn’t want anything to do with her. Paying child support pretty much escaped his mind through most of her life. When the courts finally forced him to pay something, he sent my sister a check for thirty-five cents.

Alisa was pretty close to my father, her grandfather, when she was young; they were inseparable. Though his passing was at an early age for her, she still remembers his face in vivid detail and tells her three-year-old sister wonderful stories about her Pop-pop. I’ve even caught Marissa singing to Pop-pop the way Alisa use to when she was the same age.

My sister dated another man who suggested putting Alisa up for adoption and starting over. I’m happy to say that she abruptly kicked his ass to the curb. Her current husband tries to be a father-figure and though he has some faults, he is still a good man; but he and my sister had their own daughter and though Alisa doesn’t let on, I know it hurt her a little. I have to make it perfectly clear that she is the best big sister her little sister could have.

I think feeling sorry for Alisa is my job, because I never hear her complain. Sure she is a teenager, so she complains about the normal teenage things, but she has a strong will. I can’t say that I’m shocked, through the toughest times she has kept our family sane. She has my sister’s personality, strength and beauty.

She doesn’t know it but she keeps me together. I remember the first time she fell asleep in my arms as an infant, I’ve never felt so comfortable. She wrote me the sweetest letter, that I read when I get depressed. In it she tells me of how proud she is of me and how my worries of failing everyone are insane, “because you could never fail me Uncle Danny.” I wish I had half her strength.

She is growing into a beautiful teenage girl. She loves vampire books, Country Music and wants to be a crime scene investigator(like every teenager who watches CSI). She is in the boy-crazy phase, I know it’s a normal thing, but it still worries me. I feel the need to protect her from those who may take advantage of her, but I’m concerned about being to meddlesome. It is important to allow loved ones to make their own mistakes, your job is to be there when they fall. I’m terrified about her future but confident that she will succeed, because that’s just Alisa.