My superman was living by himself on Planet Vernal when we met. He told me that he had four girls, told me their names and showed me some pictures and I could tell how proud he was of them but other than that I didn't know much. I knew they lived in another country with their mom. I knew that she left with the kids and left him with her mess to clean up. I knew that the girls loved their father very much and I knew that my superman missed his girls so much that sometimes he cried. I knew he sent them money every paycheck and I knew he spoke to them whenever he could. That was about it.
Things changed one night when he came to pick me up for a night out and he was smiling and excited after talking to his girls. We had only been seeing each other for a few months and I KNEW I was in love with him but I had been reserving any strong emotional outburst of my undying devotion to him (omg...the sap!) until I had this father-daughter relationship of his figured out. Anyhoo, he had told his girls that after a year of singledom, he had met and fallen in love with someone and their reaction was elation. They shrieked and yelled and cried with joy that he had finally taken the step away from his unhappy 20 year marriage and was moving on to something promising and hopeful.
I was floored. You see and hear all the time about children being upset with their parents for dating and hating the new significant other. You hear that children resent the fact that their parents don't love each other anymore and don't want to see a parent replaced by someone else and yet here are these girls jumping up and down and cheering their father's happiness. It spoke volumes to me of their love for their daddy and let me know that my superhero had done something right in the way they were raised. He doesn't even know this but that moment....sitting in his car telling me about this phone call...that was when everything clicked into place for me. That was when I knew I would marry this man and we would be together forever.
Six months later my superhero and I have shacked up on Planet Vernal and the dreaded Ex calls him out of the blue and asks him if he would like for his youngest little tomato to come and live with him. Now it's one thing being a stepmom long distance but it's another thing entirely to have them living with us. Not to mention the fact that own stepparents, both my mom's husband and my dad's wife, resented and ignored me when I was growing up and I just didn't know what kind of Stepmommy I would be. Would I resent them? Would I be jealous? Would this be the thing, cuz there is always a thing, that starts the downward spiral of our relationship? I didn't know.
I remember when my mom finally left her second husband after 14 years of marriage. He called my brother and I to his home and in a desperate act to get my mother back he tearfully apologized for all of the terrible things he had done to us. He cried and said that we didn't deserve it and would we please forgive him for being such a son of a bitch for all those years. And then he said something I will never forget...he said, "I don't care what anyone tells you, you can NEVER love your stepkids as much as your own."
This statement hurt so deep that even 15 years later it still pisses me off to think about it. I remember thinking WHY? Why can't you love a child, any child as much as your own child. Why is that SO HARD? And I decided that I would never marry someone who already has children because I would never want to put any kid through what I had lived through. If you can't love your stepchildren like your own then don't have stepchildren. It's not fair to them.
Of course, when I made this promise to myself I was only 19 years old. I didn't know that I would be 33 when I met the love of my life. It's not practical to think that I would meet at this late date a decent man who has never been married and has no kids. Honestly, if he's never been married at 35 or so there is probably a really good reason.
So of course I agreed to our little tomato coming to live with us. I remember bringing home the check that would pay for her ticket and handing it to my superhero and telling him to call the airline and book the plane ride. I remember the look of astonishment on his face and I remember us holding each other and crying tears of joy.
That was over two years ago. Our little tomato is 10 years old now and she is so funny and so sweet. She is the entertainment in the house and never fails to make me laugh at any given opportunity. I can't even bear to think of the happiness I would have denied myself, my daughter and my superhero had I chickened out and not allowed her to come.
And as for my Stepmonsters statement that you can't love a child that is not your own as much? He was wrong. Dead wrong. She is a light in my soul. She is the daughter that God promised to me when I was little and said I wanted to be a mommy when I grow up and have six kids. She was training for the other two girls that came to us two months later. And her coming only brought my super hero and I to a new level of love and growth. Our lives are full, crazy busy, loud, active and beautiful. I've never felt so blessed. And I promise all of my daughters, because they ARE my daughters, that I will ALWAYS love them completely and unconditionally. I know this is possible now.
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