{"id":63,"date":"2023-09-21T14:50:49","date_gmt":"2023-09-21T14:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eportfolio.siue.edu\/evitt-nashed\/?page_id=63"},"modified":"2023-10-02T14:37:27","modified_gmt":"2023-10-02T14:37:27","slug":"maturing-overnight","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/eportfolio.siue.edu\/evitt-nashed\/maturing-overnight\/","title":{"rendered":"Maturing Overnight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It all started on a normal day in March 2021. I was a sophomore in high school at that time. I was in study hall class with my friend and suddenly, I got this<\/mdspan> Instagram dm from someone I did not know. I opened it, and it is<\/mdspan> just a bunch of screenshots. I read the screenshots and figured out a woman was convincing my brother he was the father of her two-year-old boy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I did not believe it at first, so I read it repeatedly. It seemed to me the woman got a paternity test to see who the father was cause<\/mdspan> the baby didn\u2019t look like her boyfriend. Instead, it was my brother\u2019s kid. Now just imagine how that boyfriend of hers felt knowing the kid wasn\u2019t his and he took care of it for two years\u2026. yeah, he wasn\u2019t too happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mother of the kid forced my brother to take care of the kid since it\u2019s his now, but he didn\u2019t know what to do. <\/mdspan>He didn\u2019t believe it was his kid. My brother himself was a sophomore in college and thought his whole life would be ruined. He didn\u2019t know how to tell my parents from a foreign country who don\u2019t necessarily know how to deal with a teen pregnancy. \u00a0He didn\u2019t want to tell my parents, but eventually the mother sent a text to my mom saying my brother has a child and he needs to step up as a father now.<\/mdspan><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The school day came to an end, so I waited in the pickup line for my mom to pick me up. When I got in the car, she just looked like a wreck. She seemed like she was bawled<\/mdspan> her eyes out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It was a quiet car ride until she asked me if I knew what happened. I looked at her in the eyes and said, \u201cYes, I do mom.\u201d She started to cry again and said she didn\u2019t know what to do. I told her that God sends us challenges to test our strength. The rest of the car ride was silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Once we got home, I went straight to my room. The whole day all I heard was yelling from both my parents and my brother. My parents were ashamed of my brother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Days go by and my brother tries ignoring the mother, but that\u2019s just not the right thing to do.<\/mdspan> He knew it wasn\u2019t right. He had to step up and be a father. He thought about how the child would not have a father figure in his life. A father figure is so important to a boy growing up. A father is there to set an example for how the son should grow up to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    My brother had to drop out of college to focus more on the child. My parents absolutely hated that idea, but he needed to take responsibility. My brother didn\u2019t know how to be a father. He had to grow a mature mind quickly. He was scared inside. He thought he wouldn\u2019t be a good father. He wasn\u2019t ready.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A couple months pass by and the mother wants my brother to meet his son. He is<\/mdspan> nervous that the little guy won\u2019t like him, or he will be a bad father. But in my opinion, I think that\u2019s a fear every father has.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A knock was heard at the door. It\u2019s the mother and the child. My mom opened the door for her and greeted her. The kid ran inside the house like he already owns<\/mdspan> it! My brother saw his son for the first time. He saw himself in him. My brother saw a complete replica of himself in that kid. He fell in love immediately with him. His name is Sawyer. Sawyer is<\/mdspan> my first nephew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My brother and Sawyer enjoying Easter together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My first nephew at age 15. That means I am an aunt. It felt weird for the first couple months knowing I was an aunt and that my brother is a father. I honestly got made fun of a lot in high school for being an aunt. My brother got called multiple bad things that made me honestly sad. But I knew that he was doing the right thing for the kid. No one understood the position we were in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Since my brother dropped out of college, he had to find a full-time job that could help benefit himself and his son. He found a really good job being an engineer fixing engines for bikes, four wheelers, side by side, anything you can think of that\u2019s not a car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Months go by and he makes great money. He filed for insurance for Sawyer immediately. He starts to spoil Sawyer with a bunch of toys and even a little four-wheeler he made himself from scratch!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    A whole year goes by and my whole family loves Sawyer as their own child. We give him so much love and the education he needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Spa day with his cool aunt!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0 We take Sawyer back to his mom every Sunday since we only have weekends to see Sawyer and she gets weekdays to see him.<\/mdspan><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been 2 years now and nothing has changed. She doesn\u2019t seem to trust us. We only get him on weekends, and she gets him on weekdays. Why isn\u2019t it 50\/50? Didn\u2019t she want my brother to step up and be a father? He can\u2019t really be a great father if he only gets to see him on weekends, only if you\u2019re feeling like giving Sawyer to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I don\u2019t think it was fair to our family to not have Sawyer 50\/50. It\u2019s been years and Sawyer is 5 now. The woman takes advantage of the money my brother works hard for to take care of the child. She sees that she doesn\u2019t have to supply money for the child as much now since my brother has better pay and a full-time job. The Mother of Sawyer had a habit of going out on weekends to bars while we took<\/mdspan> care of him. We don\u2019t think that\u2019s what a mother should do. She should have a full-time job to help my brother with Sawyer\u2019s expenses. You need a job to take care of a child. You need insurance to cover the child\u2019s medical injuries. Everything she doesn\u2019t have but she takes it from us through the court systems.<\/mdspan><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In today\u2019s world racism isn\u2019t quite solved in our town. We live in an all-white town full of only conservatives.  The court system loves to favor the white people over the foreign ones, but it should not be that way. She takes advantage of my brother because she knows that he will give all the money in the world to support his child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     But like I said in the beginning, God sends us challenges to see how strong we are. We don\u2019t care that she\u2019s taking money from us. We just want the child to be happy. That\u2019s all that matters to us. We don\u2019t want Sawyer to live the childhood life that my brother and I couldn\u2019t experience as well. As an aunt I took him to every park there was in town and let him play for hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sawyer having fun at the park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something I always wanted to do as a child, but my parents never had time. I always got<\/mdspan> him ice cream if he asked because as a child, my parents didn\u2019t have enough spare money to just use. I felt like a mother to him. Sawyer is special to me. He shows me that there\u2019s joy in everything around. You just got to make it joyful. It\u2019s all about the vibes you bring out into the world that you will receive back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My nephew enjoying a treat from our hometown ice cream shop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having Sawyer as my nephew made me mature very quickly and act like a mother myself. But I\u2019m so grateful to be the aunt of this precious boy. He is a gift from God sent to our family. No matter what challenges God brings to us, we tough it out and make the best out of it. He doesn\u2019t just send us challenges just cause, its to test our strength as a family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sawyer and I dressed up nicely for prom! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By: Evitt Nashed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It all started on a normal day in March 2021. I was a sophomore in high school at that time. I was in study hall class with my friend and suddenly, I got this Instagram dm from someone I did not know. I opened it, and it is just a bunch of screenshots. I read […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_sb_is_suggestion_mode":false,"_sb_show_suggestion_boards":false,"_sb_show_comment_boards":false,"_sb_suggestion_history":"","_sb_update_block_changes":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-63","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.siue.edu\/evitt-nashed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.siue.edu\/evitt-nashed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.siue.edu\/evitt-nashed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.siue.edu\/evitt-nashed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.siue.edu\/evitt-nashed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.siue.edu\/evitt-nashed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/63\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71,"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.siue.edu\/evitt-nashed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/63\/revisions\/71"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.siue.edu\/evitt-nashed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}