Let's be clear, fellow savvy aunties--I would rather wear a black mohair sweater in August than run. I would not run if someone was chasing me with a machete. I ran one time. It was in the ninth grade, and I did it because I had to. I hated it. So now I don't know do it anymore. Ever.
But I'm running. It's true. No one is chasing me. There is no machete. Someone is going to fire a gun (not a real gun, a race gun), and I'm going to run a 10k. That's like 7 miles or something. I'm not sure; kilometers are like dog years. I'm running because I love my best girl Kelli like nothin' doin'. I love her second baby boy, Jasper, and I loved her her first baby boy, Kamran (Cameron in English). Her husband is pretty ok, too.
Kamran was my boyfriend. He was born in January 2007 and he died in November of 2008. Kamran liked fish, grass, Elmo, roaring like a dinosaur and sleeping with his stuffed bear, Cody. He loved his mommy and his daddy and all his savvy aunties. He liked to play, and if you didn't play with him, he would come over and pat your face until you did. He had giant brown eyes like his mommy, and he had a really complicated thing called Monosomy-7. That means he had a really, really rare form of Leukemia (JMML) that only hits babies. It doesn' have any risk factors or genetic indicators--it's just a chromosome mutation, and it happens because it happens. That's it.
JMML also doesn't have much in the way of research funds, because it is so rare. So that's why I'm running. Because I love Kamran, and I told him I would be a good auntie when he was born, and promised I would take care of his mommy after he died.
So, I'm running. In ninth grade, I didn't know what it meant to love like an Auntie. Now I'm an Auntie, and I run to the ends of the earth, while wearing a black mohair sweater, in the middle of August, if it keeps someone else's nephew alive.