It's All Relative

There's a blonde haired, six year old. We share the recessive gene for blue eyes and a middle name.  We share a mom... kind-of... he thinks of her as a grandma, she's not... but he *is* a grandson.

He only see's his grandfather once in awhile and when he does, he says that his breath smells like beer.  He won't know, at least for awhile, that his grandmother smelled of beer too, the day they pulled her dead body from the wreckage. 

He won't know, at least for awhile...that same grandma touched his father as a lover when he was his age and that maybe that has something to do with the fact that he can't see daddy any more. Lawyers, judges and jail cells say so.  

He cries sometimes when he starts thinking too much about his mom. He doesn't understand the light bulb that burned his head 4 years ago, the one that cooked her meth, was the one that took her and has her hidden only miles from him.

He doesn't know that the man and woman he lives with are his great-aunt and uncle.  He just just calls them mom and dad.  My mom... his paternal great-aunt... is Bonnie to him... and he loves her he does know that.  He knows too that she  loves him. He gets to visit once a month or so. 

When he visits he gets to see Nana... my grandmother, his great grandmother, mother of 5, daughter of two... Nana. He does know that visiting her means cookies and kisses. 

He does know, that when he visits,  people... me and my sister and her boyfriend, travel miles to see him.  He doesn't know that we are second cousins... we are just Bonnie's daughters... or Gina or Shannon and Shawn. The one's who always have gifts for him and tease him and play rockets with him. 

He doesn't know that when we go out with him and people refer to him as my son or that I wish I had adopted him when I had the chance.

So the blonde haired, blue eyed six year old,  as we're sitting in a restaurant, leans over and whispers...  

"Gina, do you have a boyfriend?"

"No", I say.

"So, you're just a girl?" he asks. 

"Yep... I'm just a girl" I say.

He doesn't know... it's all relative.