call me anything
I had a great visit with a wonderful woman over the weekend. she is my stepdaughter.
we have been through so much together. when I met her, she was in 3rd grade, now a sophomore in college. the years have been amazing, the changes incredible.
we laughed about her different ‘phases’, the extreme shyness, the necessity of goth, the girly-girl times, the dates and the heartaches. she is slated to be more a friend now than a daughter and I’m fine with any circumstance. I love her dearly.
when we met she was going through the demise of her family unit. her parents had divorced but in her mind hope was always intact. when her dad and I married, she was not pleased. it was very difficult for both of us. I had worked with children all of my life, as a volunteer in various areas. a single professional woman, I had never married so had no children of my own but really loved kids. I was always the favorite aunt, the neat ‘mom’s best friend’, the fun next-door neighbor to kids but never a mom. I proceeded slowly, getting into her life. her dad wanted to rush us but I knew better. still, she was rushed and it hurt her. I was unwelcome. for the first time in my adult life, a child did not want a thing to do with me. I was so surprised, hurt, and confused. I tried everything, I thought.
what I finally had to relent to was the unvarnished truth. after a particularly bad visit I was finished. I had no thoughts of trying further. by this time she was a freshman in high school. she had done some unforgivable thing and I was shattered by the memory.
when she came back, I invited her to have a talk. I laid my cards on the table. I loved her. I had worked very hard to love her. it was not something that just happened because I married her dad. it was a conscious decision and I had to be certain it took. I loved her. I would do anything in the world for her. I was so sorry about her parents’ divorce and her upheaval but I had nothing to do with any of it. I was also a child of divorce and knew the pain. I simply married a man I had fallen in love with. a divorced man. and she came along with the package.
I asked her to please tell me 3 or 4 things I had done to cause her pain, to hurt her, to make her angry. I wanted to know so that I could try to improve but I was fatigued with being treated badly and being unwelcome in my own home and life. I did not intend to allow any more ill treatment. she cried. she explained that it was nothing I had done. she said I had always been wonderful to her. she knew I loved her. then she said it was not me, it was what I represented: that her parents were really over.
what a huge statement for a young girl. what a truth.
we both cried, held each other for the loss each of us had suffered and for the mending we were needing .
after that day, we went into sync. our relationship began to flourish. we had both learned huge lessons. I believed I had known just what to do with my new kids, to help them like me and then maybe love me. yet, I could not have really understood their feelings. I wasn’t them, they weren’t me. we all had to navigate this together and mostly, we had to be willing. one person in a relationship cannot maintain without the other being engaged.
she is a young woman and I am an older lady. we have 13 years’ history. we have a relationship that will continue in some version even though we will never again live near each other and even though she is now watching her father move out of my life. she is something of a niece to me now. a friend. a daughter of a friend. my daughter. she is important to my life. she needs no label. neither do I.
we have love, respect and enough history to understand each other. we have continuity. how lucky is that?
This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 12:45 pm and is filed under death, fear, giving, loss, loyalty in relationships, marriage, sharing, timing is everything, trust. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.