This summer my granddaughter Nahliyah came to stay with us in Ashburn, VA during her school break. She was extremely excited when she got to our house. My wife (who she refers to as GG for ‘Gorgeous Grandmother’) and we asked her “what she wanted to do for her summer break”. Her response was simple, “let’s have fun whatever we do”. So that’s exactly what we did!
We spent much of our time traveling around the DMV area taking in the local attractions. She was enrolled in a summer camp with her Uncle Cameron and Aunt Aniyah through Lifetime fitness. The camp’s trip schedule was vast, and she got to visit the Air & Space Museum and many of the Washington DC monuments. She was very excited about seeing the White House and could not stop talking about this trip.
While at home, she would often ask her GG to tickle her and impersonate a made-up person we liked to call “Pricilla”! lol… At the time we were unaware of how energetic Nahliyah was but after a while we started to find ourselves physically drained striving to keep up with her day-to-day pace.
With Nahliyah losing her father at such a young age, it was easy for us to see that she had some struggles grasping the concept of death. There were moments she would reflect on missing her father; but during our conversation she would always reassure me she knew he was always watching over her. As we worked to help her come to an understanding about this, it was great to see her stay positive about the loss of her father. In these moments she loved to hear the song “I’ll Be In The Sky” by BoB. This is one of her favorite songs and she would tell me about all the time her father would sing songs to her on the way to school. Every night we looked into our Granddaughter’s eyes, we could see the love of my son through her. Having Nahliyah in our presence felt like Marcus’s spirit was rejoicing about her existence.
The most important thing we learned about our Granddaughter is the level of love she can express at any given moment. We would often shower her in hugs and kisses and she fully embraced this. It was delightful to have her with us for the summertime and we are looking forward to seeing her again soon!
-PaPa & GG