Nephews

This week I attended my nephew Oli’s Year 12 graduation and met my nine-month old nephew Felix.

Felix is a happy, gorgeous baby, and has been passed around his extended family without complaint. He’s at the age when he grabs everything, and mostly it ends up in his mouth. His skin is smooth and soft, his two teeth useful not as much to chew, as to punctuate his frequent smiles. He’s a heffalump at 10kg, the same weight his cousin Oli was at six months but my girls wouldn’t have reached until they were over one year old. When Felix and his parents came over to our new house for the first time, we walked around the garden and three times Lara asked to hold him but he ended up back with his mother Becky: he was just too heavy for her to carry, despite her enthusiasm.

Felix was at Oli’s graduation, giving voice to the proceedings, and made it to Oli’s award receipt where his contribution to rowing and working on drama productions were acknowledged, along with his friendly nature and commitment to his schoolwork. I enjoyed hearing of each student’s key attributes, favourite experiences of school and achievements as they received their award, and their hopes of what they wanted to do in the future. There were a pretty big spectrum of dreams covered, across universities and TAFE courses in our state and states further afield, with quite a few planning a gap year to work and travel, including Oli. A projected photo of each student as a small child and then in Year 12 also accompanied their walk across the stage – the individual spotlight a good practice for public presentation, I think.

A year 12 student gave the farewell address, passing on the advice of his parents that you can’t control other peoples’ actions, but you can control your own, and to focus on that. He acknowledged the challenges that he and his classmates will face with climate change and housing affordability and that they were lucky to have grown up in Australia and to have had a good education to help them to navigate these challenges. He reminded his peers of all of their achievements that they wouldn’t necessarily have thought they could have done, such as raising more than $50,000 for the World’s Greatest Shave and surviving all the hiking in their Year nine camp. The head of Year 12 picked up the theme of the Greatest Shave in her address, also observing that she had more gray hairs after her hair grew back than when she had started in the role. She also urged them to educate themselves of the Voice to Parliament and the opportunities it will mean for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, on which issue they will be casting their first votes next year. She ended her speech, appropriately, with highlights of Tim Minchin’s inspiring talk to his alma mater than has since gone viral. Worth a regular viewing I think, Tim encouraged the students to be kind to themselves and each other, to do what they love, to work hard and not give up.

Felix and his parents are moving to Melbourne next January, so we will see much more of them than we have of their parents even pre-COVID. The age gap between Felix and my girls is the same as that between my brother and I, and I can see my girls taking on the same maternal role I played at that age. They are good with babies and small children, and I think they will read to him and play very happily with him when we visit Melbourne and meet at Anglesea.

We all met up together at a good Italian restaurant for dad’s birthday last night. Felix was passed right around the table. Marcus clapped to him, he pulled Steve’s glasses off, and Oli and his father each had a cuddle.

Maggie and Becky took him for walks around the block, Lara and Rhea had a nurse, and so did mum, dad and I.

As my second cousin wrote in a card after our girls were born, soon they’ll be pulling your hair, then tugging at your skirts, and before you know it they’ll be towering over you.

At almost six foot three, that’s certainly the case for my nephew Oli, with the world at his feet and that delicious, intoxicating feeling of freedom and promise stretching out into the coming weeks and years ahead.

And it’s Rhea and Lara’s Year 6 graduation in a week.