MISSING NEMO

It has been almost five years already since his parents made the big decision of entrusting care of him to us. They were just starting their family then, and both his parents are saving up to be able to support the barely three month old Nemo then. They can't just yet afford to hire a nanny for him.

Me and my wife at the time was a little more than a year working out our relationship. As with a previous post, my wife have had two miscarriages in our first year together. We were not devastated then, as we have learned to trust whatever God has planned on us. Having Nemo though was sort of like a blessing to us.

Nemo's father is my nephew who is a year younger than I am. He worked then in Metro Manila as a junior engineer for a construction company. His mother, on the other hand, is an employee of the same company. As per the agreement we had, they werre to send support for Nemo every month as me and my wife also barely are making enough for our own living.

We were so delighted upon setting our eyes on Nemo. Yes, he was named after the animation character as he was born in the year the movie was shown (2003). The experience was the closest we had to being parents ourselves. It was quite a job, but we pulled through just fine, or some even say great. He stayed with us until before he turned a year old, and then returned to us for several months more shortly after his first birthday. When he was about three years old, his nanny left and he again lived with us for a month or so.

The good thing about Nemo is that eventhough we have taught him from the start who really his parents are, he always have treated as just the same as he does his parents. Well, sometimes even more, I should say. There are a few times his mother would get jealous when Nemo prefer our company during our visits after we have moved here in Metro Manila almost a couple of years ago. Also, that time when he returned to our care when he was three years old, he did not forget our names and have welcomed us as he would have when he was just a baby.

About three months ago, his father- my nephew, left for work in the middle east where he signed up for a two year contract. Nemo was growing and simply the family needed to generate more income to be able to support him. His mother is still working all these times and was not about to give up her career as well. Nemo had a nanny to take care of him whenever his parents are at work. Before his father left, they moved to a province next to Metro Manila where his mother enherited their old house.

Until this development, we used to be able to just visit Nemo at least once a month as they used to just be in the next city around thirty minutes away from where we live. For the last four months though, including the month before they transferred to the suburb, we have not been able to visit them. Although we are able to call Nemo on the phone, there is no replacement to paying him a visit and bringing him home with us for a day. Recently, also, we have opted to lessen the frequency of calls to him as he is beginning to beg for us to visit him. We ourselves are busy with our jobs, and being in the call center industry, our work shifts are not like those of traditional jobs. For example, my current rest day schedules are from Wednesday through Friday; wherein those days Nemo has school. The last time we called was about a week ago, and it was really hard to hear him cry on the other end begging for us to visit him.

His parents are good, and they always make it a point to give him quality time during weekends. It just so happens that Nemo considers us to be sort of second parents, and he probably needs affection from us too. We do miss him a lot too. The thing is that we just couldn't make time for him right now. With the company, I am allowed total of twenty days of paid vacation per year, but as of now I only have six left and I am saving five of those for our vacation in our province in December, and one day for emergency purposes.

Somehow, we may be able to workout a schedule by the coming week to finally come and visit him. However, it will just be a visit as it will be on a weekday and he won't be able to come back home with us. That poses another problem as he definitely would want to come home with us like he is used to whenever we visit him. We're willing to risk that and offer him anything to appease just to give him a visit and not to bring him home with us for a day.