Blast from the past

The bad thing about the internet is that it never forgets. I have a birthday reminder website that automatically reminds me of people's birthdays, because I'm so bad at remembering.

So this weekend, I got a reminder for February 03 for someone named Zarif. I was racking my brain to figure out who it was. And suddenly I figured it out after a minute and it made me profoundly sad for the entire day.

Zarif is my cousin's firstborn. I've last seen him back in 1998 when he was two, so he must be about 12 now. There's a great line in the movie Clueless that you divorce wives, you don't divorce children. So, even though I have no idea how he is, where he is, or what he looks like, and will probably never see him again in my lifetime, he'll never stop being my nephew.

My regret is that he will never know what a great loving uncle I am to my other nephews and nieces, and how much love and prayers we still have for him.