To come from a different perspective: I was a step-mother and then a step-grandmother. I divorced my husband because - well, lots of reasons. I lost two little girls with the divorce who had always known me as the "cool" grandmother that was until that point the only stability they knew - because my stepson and their mother divorced then she dropped them off at his house one weekend and never came back. A mother and not a mother, a grandmother and not a grandmother. a hard thing for a heart to bear.
The above is a comment I made regarding a blog post I read about how difficult it is to be a stepmother when the children live on an opposite coast and the mother is not cooperative in accepting the remarriage of her former husband.
It made me think, and not a few old feelings came back I had thought were done and over.
I loved those little girls, who are little no longer. One was born in 1984, the other in 1989. So they are 29 and 24 now. Grown women. I have no idea where they live, what they grew up to be. I do not know if their father's second marriage survived or how they processed and reconciled the loss of their grandfather.
I tried as hard as I knew how when I was a part of their lives to be a stable influence, and offer a safe haven to process the confusion and rejection they felt when their parents divorced. I talked about the good things I knew about their mother with them because they would hear so much bad from others.
We made pancakes and cookies together and I was with them when they experienced the miracle of watching a goat give birth. I laughed hysterically when the younger one wanted to put the afterbirth in a paper bag and take it to kindergarten for show and tell. I laughed even harder when her father and grandfather lost their breakfasts when she tried to pick the afterbirth up with a stick.
But in the end I was only half of a person in their lives.
I hope it was a good half.
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