Family what’s important
Day after Christmas and I got a call this morning that one of my three first cousins, the one next to me in age so the one I knew the longest and I guess was closest to, passed away from a massive heart attack at the age of 51, one year younger than I am. While in our adult years, my cousin and I had little in common, we still had that connection we had developed early on in life, and every time we saw each other was like a week since the last time, so we were leagues apart yet we were family. I loved him and I hope he knew it.
What has this to do with StepmomDom? I don’t know, but I do regret he didn’t know any of my children and maybe that’s the rub. In our modern day lives with disconnected and physically separated families, it takes much more effort on our part to know each other than it used to. We’re missing something and our children are missing something if we don’t value and foster those connections.
Even tonight I spoke to his Mother and I realized that she doesn’t know my children either, she met them once at least, that first Thanksgiving when I got them down south before we we married. Neither she nor my cousin ever met my little boy. I listened as my Aunt’s heart broke and spilled out in little snapshots of her time with her boy. What a pretty baby he was, that people mistook him for a girl he was so pretty. How he cried all the time and she didn’t know what to do. How he’d crawl off and get into trouble while I was such a lamb and just stayed put…on to his escapades as an older boy and teen-ager and then her pride as she spoke about how smart she thought he was, how sweet natured he’d always been and what a good son he was. It was very important to my Aunt that her son found his religious path toward the end of his life. He converted to Catholocism after he met and married his second wife and he seemed at peace with that aspect of his life.
All I could do was listen, tell her that I wished I’d told him more often how much he meant to me and that I loved him. I cried a little with her. She said it helped her, I hope it did. I expect it helped me too. I couldn’t help but think of my own children and I said to my Aunt more than once, I can’t even imagine the pain involved in losing a child. I’ve seen my parents go through it, I’ve seen my former Father in Law go through it, I’ve seen my young sister in law and brother in law go through it. Now, having kids of my own, I get it. What a terrible terrible thing for a parent to have to endure.
Since I’ve been home from going back down south for my cousin’s visitation, I look at all my children in a little different light. What if, in an instant, they were just gone. Each of our children have made me proud, laugh, sad, happy, embarrassed, mad but you know…I wouldn’t trade knowing them for the world. As I come back in to normal and they sing song mock me about the way that they put their dishes in the sink or carry their shoes up to their room or whatever…they have no idea what my heart feels for them right now. I’m afraid if they knew, I could be at a great disadvantage, so I’ll just keep it to myself, for now.
Lessons learned
If you’re lucky you’ll have children in your life, however they come to be there. Take a minute once in a while to just appreciate them for who they are.
Things that upset us and make us mad at each other are for the most part pretty petty. We would do well to remember that.
Time and again I have been shown that you had better appreciate people while you have them because they get taken away. We don’t know where they go or why they have to go right then, just that they are gone and then it’s too late.
I’ve had a lot of loss in my life. I have lost friends, aunts, uncles, grandmothers, grandfathers, my only sibling, my first husband and very best friend, my Step Father of many years, my Dad, bosses, co-workers, nephews…old….middle aged….young adult..babies. The very notion of losing any of my kids is an unbearable thought. Tell you what, doesn’t matter that I didn t know them till they were almost adolescents, they are mine almost the same as their birth Mom and I appreciate that more than I did before.
My cousin never even met my kids, I hope wherever he is, he realizes that he has had a profound impact on how I will go forward with them. Quite the legacy for some guy they never knew…thanks Mark.
Good StepMom
