Are you comfortable with compliments?

Why humility for me is confusing, specifically with one situation

credit: Tamara Pico

The Pacific Ocean frames the rolling tan-colored fields, cows graze in the meadow, and four turkeys fly low to the ground and disappear into the trees. In the distance, a deep green forest of redwoods. Tucked in these lands is where my nephew, my pseudo-son, now lives.

On move-in day last week at the University of California, Santa Cruz, first-year students were given instructions on passcodes and keys to their dorm rooms. Because the campus has limited parking, we were given 15 minutes to unload our car and move in.

In this ridiculous short time, we scrambled to collect his clothes on hangers, twin long sheets, shower caddy, and other possessions and hauled them up 3 flights of stairs. Before leaving, as Caeleb finagled with his bike and its lock, I stopped, breathless.

My eyes scanned a relic next to the bike racks. Giant redwoods climbed the sky. The dark brown bark with its deep rough grooves wrapped around huge trunks. How many hundreds of years have these trees been here? On this misty day, we were given a few minutes, technically 900 seconds to move his life here.

The juxtaposition of time mirrored the time we had with him. He lived with us just a few years, which made me wonder, how much deeper roots could he have grown if he was with us earlier in his youth?

It’s been 3 years and some change since my nephew (on my husband’s side), aged 15 at the time, moved in with us in San Diego. He left his childhood home, all his friends and family, a two hour drive away in the Mojave Desert.

He largely grew up without his father due to drug and alcohol addiction. He lived with his mother and her boyfriend and, in this house, he witnessed emotional and verbal abuse, often spurred on by parents who also toil with substance and anger issues. He painstaking left behind his much younger half-sister. She was probably the hardest part of his decision to leave, with no way to protect her anymore. In this crossroads, he started a new life with us, choosing to walk away from the baggage that came with his living situation.

Prior to his move, nearby grandparents and extended family were always there to lift the weight where needed, like rides to school, practices, games, or help with school clothes and supplies, also guidance and love. We were grateful he had many homes and places to retreat.

Then when COVID hit and we heard he moved out of his mom’s house and bounced between family’s homes, I strongly had the desire to open our home to him.

One place of stability.

substitute parents

We offered him this chance to come live with us. He is a good kid and we saw his potential. While we knew he would always carry the weight of his family wherever he went, we knew it could help to be geographically far from these problems so he can spend his pivotal high school years in a “normal” home.

We also knew opportunities with us would be less of a gamble. We have the time, financial stability, the resources and, most importantly, the desire to help.

People reminded us how we are so giving, such saints for taking him in. It felt awkward to say thank you, or respond at all. I often didn’t know what to say and would belittle the praise and joke about the weird shit teenagers do to move the spotlight off me.

On the other hand, I would be totally bullshitting you if I didn’t proudly sneak in that I took in a teenager when meeting people.

“I have two kids, 6 and 9, and we took in our teenage nephew 3 years ago,” I’d say. Here is where I’d wait for the flattery I expected to receive but cringed to hear.

Humility is an expected trait in our American culture. It’s also difficult to teach. And, for this situation, odd for me to navigate.

As I prepared for Caeleb to leave for college, I was reading a book, called Invisible Child. It is a story about homelessness and journalist Andrea Elliott from The New York Times follows a girl from Bed-Stuy in New York City and her family of 10 people over the course of 8 years. The oldest, a daughter named Dasani, earns an opportunity to move away to a boarding school.

Like Caeleb, someone saw the potential in her. Like Caeleb, she moved away from everyone and everything she knew for a chance at something better.

Without revealing what happens in the book, unlike Caeleb, the outcome was different. Their stories and backgrounds are nearly nothing alike. Yet I couldn’t help but think of my nephew when I read this book. How many advantages he had, opportunities given to him, how he took them and continued on with them.

Then I think how life can be incredibly unfair if you grew up in a different ancestral line, or in a community in which everyone struggles, where living day to day is how you must survive. When you don’t get to see anything different, how do you know you deserve different?

At first, reading this book made me more confused about hearing the compliments. He came from a place of privilege in comparison to this family born and bred in a messed up system meant to keep people, especially marginalized black and latinos, in the slog.

I’m relieved Caeleb has done well. Then tend to feel guilt about how there are so many kids who have extreme complicated upbringings and circumstances that I don’t let myself feel proud of what we fostered here.

Now that my nephew is gone, I have been walking down our hallway, see his empty room, and feel all sorts of emotions I didn’t hold space for before. Maybe it’s because I was waiting for this next major milestone.

So here I am. I am going to just say it. We tried our best. We were present, we were consistent, we were a safe space, we also stayed true to who we are because modeling is the best way to be a guardian, a mentor, or parent.

university student in his dorm with crazy aunt

With us, he lived in a safe home, he learned to drive, we went to his basketball games, we gave him responsibilities and accountability, we helped him determine his path after high school, we helped him apply to college, we guided him through some real and normal yet hard-to-navigate teenage stuff. Most of all, we did our best to guide him through tough situations unique to his upbringing, reminding him his worth is beyond the weight of his family issues.

I am proud of my nephew. And, as I feel the squirm inside me, I am proud of myself. I am proud of my husband, especially. He did many of the uncomfortable man-to-man talks with him. We watched this kid grow up in our home. It was hard but it was also incredibly fulfilling.

We showed up. We stayed when shit got hard. Doing these acts isn’t as easy as it sounds on paper.

lots of uncle/nephew “bro” talk on this boat

Asking my nephew to move in with us was one of the best decisions we ever made.

I feel good knowing that a little bit of us is with him as he takes this next leap in this place. Will he finally understand all the stuff we nagged him about now that he’s on his own?! Please tell me this is what happens when these “adults” leave the nest.

I’m excited for him to navigate life for himself in this next chapter.

I have high-as-trees-in-the-sky hopes for him. I love that he now lives in a forest of opportunities.

go banana slugs!

P.S. I’m clearly fishing for compliments 😉

in case you were trying to remember where you’ve seen his university mascot (John Travolta in Pulp Fiction)