Not Your Average Lawyer

I have much to be grateful for....

I have decided that I need to write a gratitude journal. It will be a chronicle of all the people in my life and of all the random things in my daily existence of whom or of which I am eternally grateful. The symbol above is the symbol of gratitude. If you are the subject of this post, I offer it to you with an abiding and heartfelt thank you for gracing my life.

To my free bird daughter, Lynn

I used to bristle when people told me that you could never be the same as my own blood-born child, since they said you were my step-daughter. I always thought those misguided people were so wrong. It’s because they never experienced the absolute joy that you brought into each day or understood the immeasurable heartache each time you left to go back to your Mom after a weekend visit with your Dad and I. You were with us every second weekend and for two weeks in the summer and we looked forward to those visits as if we were being blessed with Christmas twenty six times a year. The best present ever.

I have said before that you taught me to be a Mom. I no doubt was never the best at that job but I always tried. Sometimes you were the one to show me the way; other times you bucked back so hard that I knew that somewhere, unbeknownst, I had taken the wrong fork in the road on the tortuous path to being a stepmother. Perchance you forgave me my trespasses; here we are some thirty two years later and I still count the sleeps until I see you again. As I did so many years ago.

I remember your angst, around six years old, when you wondered out loud if it was okay to call me “Mom”. You worried about how your “real” Mom, would feel about it and you asked me for my opinion. Your concern was a harbinger of how you would live your life – putting the soft centres of others ahead of your own needs.

I recall the time that you were trying to figure out, through your childhood lens, how it might be possible for your Mom, and your Dad, and Me, and David to all live together, happily ever after. You asked me if that was possible -- in one place, under one roof -- you would have Christmas everyday in that dream. The best present ever. It was the one thing that I could never give you. But there are many other things that I hope we gave to one another. This post is about what you gave to me.

Because of you, I was able to love your Dad more fervently, more forever. I saw the person your Dad was in the early years, when others were not so sure that he could be a wonderful and healthy person. How could he not be if he had such love in his heart for his daughter? I bore witness to the incredible devotion he had for you. And how you clung to him each time we dropped you off after a visit. You instinctively knew that your Dad needed that extra moment in order to make it through the next countless days, the thousands of moments that he would be without you. You knew the love he harboured in his heart for those who really mattered and your hugs whispered to him that you knew you much you mattered and that you’d be there forever.

Although at times it was heartbreaking for me as I watched how the custody game was played on the stage in our lives – and watched him struggle through his tears after his goodbye hugs with you -- I knew your Dad was the kind of person who would give his heart to someone and then, if it was safe and honoured, would never take it back. I have always shared your Dad’s heart with you; I always knew it could never be wholly mine, and I would not have it any other way. No matter that I had to share that love, it was the best present ever. And, in sharing that love, I was graced with the gift of you.

Fast forward and this many years later, I am so grateful for what you taught me about motherhood, about love, about separation, about longing, about mistakes, about forgiveness, about growth, and about beauty. You have struggled with your own demons, as we all have to do. At this point, demons are losing and you are not allowing them to overshadow the love that resonates in areas of your life where light shines from the people who love you. The light will always overcome the darkness. The light is where flowers grow.

I have watched you lately planting your own flowers and decorating your own soul. I am so honoured to have been a part of the journey and to stand two hands clapping for the wonderful being that is my daughter. I have much to be grateful for. I am thankful that you have shared with me the love of your Dad. But, most of all, that you call me Mom. It is the best present ever.

I love you more today than yesterday. But I will love you more tomorrow. I will always love you, my precious daughter.

With Gratitude,

Mom