Kid Chums It Up With Bali, a Bigger Kid

Bali, the daughter of Laurea’s ex-stepdad, is a living reminder of how long Laurea and I have been married, having been born just a couple months before the grand event. In photographs of that day, infant Bali is largely memorialized as a stroller, but she’s grown into a fantastic young person who is somehow like a foot taller than when we last saw her. Before yesterday, Kina had met Bali on all of four occasions, but she only remembers her from the last of those visits, when the two of them danced together to Christmas tunes played by a reggae band at a shopping center in Marin.

This time, Kina was prepared and excited, asking us repeatedly in the idyllic days leading up to our lunch with Bali about when, exactly, our lunch with Bali would occur. It occurred yesterday.

Kina has a real soft spot for kids who are either visibly younger than her or visibly older than her, and Bali is—as noted above—much older than her, but Bali is still young enough to understand how Kina wants to play, and to find some sympathetic joy in that sort of play (which largely consists of running in long chaotic loops around the redwood trees in California playgrounds and sometimes playing doctor).

Still, Bali is shockingly a Big Kid, and it was really touching watching this person on the verge of peering into adulthood linking arms with our person who is still in some ways emerging from babyhood. If Kina turns out to be half as generous and caring as Bali, we will have done our job.

Maybe I’m just writing this as a reminder to myself that these two girls are in some ways actually sisters, and as a record of my hope that they can find ways to relax into that sisterhood as they grow. Maybe it’ll be as good for a teenager to have a Kina around as it is for a first-grader to have a Bali around. God knows we’ll all need each other as we go.

In the meantime, Kina and Bali will find a way to span the gap between New York and California more often, and as they grow together, Laurea and I will remember how far we’ve come by watching them.

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