By: Hawi Bussa
I didn’t know my heart had this kind of room until she arrived.
Her name is Amayah. She is one month old, impossibly tiny and soft, with fingers like whispers and the kind of eyes that make time stop. When I hold her against my chest, the world quiets down. No emails. No deadlines. No striving. Just a heartbeat against mine—hers still learning its rhythm, mine trying to remember it.
I’m not a mother. Not yet. But I’ve recently become something else, something sacred: I’ve become an aunt.
A me-time aunt.
I say "me-time" because the time I spend with Amayah is more than babysitting or dropping off gifts wrapped in pink bows. It’s soul time. It’s the kind of time where healing and identity and reflection meet in the eyes of a child who doesn’t even know she’s ministering to you.
As an Ethiopian-American woman, I carry the stories of two worlds. I was raised by women who mothered with fierce strength—practical and quiet in their love, their hands always full, their feet always moving. But in this chapter, I’m choosing to rewrite a piece of that narrative. I’m learning that I, too, can love fully—without rushing, without performance, without exhaustion. I can offer Amayah presence over perfection.
I don’t want to be the aunt who just shows up for birthdays. I want to be the one who knows when she’s outgrown her favorite blanket. The one she runs to when her feelings are too big for words. I want to be a safe space. A mirror. A gentle reminder of who she is when the world tries to tell her otherwise.
Physically, she looks like softness wrapped in glory. Her forehead is smooth like silk, her lips are tiny and plush—perfectly made. Her cries are delicate but determined, like she already knows she deserves to be heard. I look at her and wonder what kind of world she’ll grow up in. I also wonder what kind of world I’ll build for her by just being a consistent part of her orbit.
Emotionally, she stirs something ancestral in me. The way my mother must’ve held me. The way my grandmothers probably whispered prayers over my tiny limbs. And now here I am, whispering my own over her. I pray for her protection, yes—but also for her joy. For her voice to bloom. For her spirit to feel like home in every room she enters.
Spiritually, Amayah reminds me of God’s timing. How life unfolds in the most unexpected, sacred ways. She is proof that even when things feel out of control, love can still arrive—swaddled, blinking, and brand new.
Being a healthy aunt, especially within our Ethiopian culture, means pushing past the idea that family roles are rigid. It’s creating emotional safety, not just physical care. It’s realizing that nurturing doesn’t have to come from motherhood alone—it can come from the village. From chosen love. From intentional presence.
In Amayah, I see a second chance. Not to fix everything I didn’t get right, but to simply show up differently. Softer. Wiser. More open. I want her to grow up and say, “My Auntie loved me out loud. She showed up when it wasn’t convenient. She made me feel like being me was always enough.”
So yes, I’m a me-time aunt. But more than that, I’m a soul-tethered one.
And in loving her, I’m remembering how to love myself too.