Long Distance Aunt.

The quiet grief of loving from far away.

For nearly three years, I have watched my nephew grow up through video calls and photos sent through my phone. To him, I am “Tia Sandy”.

I was only in his life, physically, for a year or so, before I moved away. And most of that was during the pandemic, so our time together was limited. For the last six months, I have watched my niece, new born, do the same - grow up in front of me through a screen. This is a quiet grief I live with.

I live in Portugal and my family lives in Canada. I am not moving back and they are not moving here. This breaks my heart. But I am building my life in a place where I always knew I was meant to be. So although it is not easy, it is necessary.

I do not have children, and will not. A choice. But my sister, who is a few years younger than I am, has two. Her children are the greatest blessing of my life. I find myself making decisions so that their world will be better. My politics, my work, the money I earn, the way I live my life are all considered with their future in mind. This feels natural for me. And I do this all from an ocean and thousands of kilometers away.

Our mother has stage four cancer. There is no fifth stage. Sometimes it feels like she is living on borrowed time. I have never met a person with more will to live than my mother, who is an immigrant to Canada from Portugal, more specifically from a tiny island in the middle of the ocean. Her cancer treatments are vicious, but necessary, and always break my heart.

I am building the life here now that she could not. She loves Canada, and although I do not feel the same, I am grateful to have been born in a country where my human rights, especially as a woman, were taught to me from a young age. I entered the movement of feminism at 19, but long before that knew that I was not less of a human being because I was a girl.

My parents, who were born into a fascist country at the time, fought me tooth and nail on my freedoms as a teenager, but in the end, they realized that they were raising a young woman with opinions, strong values and a deep sense of justice, which I have put into my work as a feminist writer for the last 25 years.

Now that I have a niece, my politics and direction feel even clearer. For my nephew, I want him to grow knowing that he has a choice to not let the patriarchy crush him too.

Although I did not birth them, I feel them in every step I take, every decision I make and every debate I fight for equality. They came from my sister, and she is half of me.

Yesterday, on a video call with my mom, who was looking after my niece, that sweet baby looked me in the eyes through a screen and I was overcome, as I often am, by a feeling of saudade - a profound longing - to know her scent.

“Mom”, I said, “can you sniff the top of her head for me? I bet she smells like heaven”, and my mother said, “she does”. Then she moved her face towards my niece and took several short inhales and said, “consola” from the word “consolar”, which in Portuguese means to comfort. My mom did this to my sister and I growing up, drinking us in to bring us closer and into her cells, to be comforted.

I wanted that sensory experience. The brain computes what we see and hear as if it is something that we are doing, like when we salivate watching comforting food being made or laugh when watching someone being tickled. Watching my mom do this to my niece, at my request, both hurt and held me somehow. The baby giggled and widened her eyes as mine stung with tears that I would not let run down my face for fear they would not stop. Being away from my family is a quiet grief I live with every day. I do not talk about it much, because most people I know do not get it. But this is part of my immigrant story.

My family and I have not always had an easy time being related, but we have always been there for one another in the ways that count. As I continue to build a life in Lisbon, thrive, not just survive anymore, like I did for decades in Toronto, they are the witnesses to my transformation. Sometimes my only mirrors for reminding me that I am okay, that my decision to leave everything behind was worth it, and necessary for my own contentment.

I cannot go back to Canada to visit them right now. It is complicated. And thinking about it makes me angry and I sometimes cry. But in the meantime, our calls, the packages we send back and forth and the messages we exchange almost everyday document our love for one another, our saudade.

My niece and nephew are being raised to know their tia, their aunt, in the distance and up close, through looking at my paintings hanging on their walls, through the books I send them in mail, and through the stories they hear from my sister and mom about who I am and always will be for them.

All the things I was as a little girl and young woman have more purpose for me now, and my niece and nephew continue to be light in my life and the reason why I will not stop fighting for a better world.

I do not always know what I am doing, and often make mistakes, but I do know for certain that what I do is for them and because of them, and that is enough reason to do anything at all.