Who am I? I am the one who has helped raise your daughter for nearly six years now. I helped her pull out her first tooth and tuck it under her pillow for the tooth fairy. I noticed when she squinted her eyes to watch TV, though she only sat two feet away from the screen. I convinced her dad she needed glasses and told her she looked beautiful and smart with them when you asked her “why she picked that color frame”. I bought her new clothes for her first day of school, dressed her and curled her hair. Then on the first day of kindergarten, I stepped aside so she could be with you and sat alone while her father took pictures of the two of you together. I developed those pictures and added them to a collage for her room. I dialed your number when she wanted to say hi and comforted her as you told her in some polite way that again, you were too busy for her. I helped fight for her when you took her away, denying her the father she had seen nearly everyday of her life. I held her father in my arms as he fought to understand how you could act so senselessly. Then I held your daughter’s hand as we entered the door for her first counseling appointment. Trusting a stranger to help put the pieces of her heart back together.
Who am I? I was the room mom in kindergarten and the class aid in 2nd grade. I am the one who enrolled her in Girl Scouts and learned the Girl Scouts Pledge along with my daughters. I am the one who’s involved in her activities, as a Cookie Chair for Girl Scouts or pep squad for baseball. I am the one who learned to stop introducing your daughter as my “ step-daughter”, because I could see she just wanted to be one of us. I noticed, without blinking an eye, when she introduced me as her mom to her teachers and friends, even though my heart must have skipped a million beats. I was the one who said it was okay to invite you to mother/daughter events with Girl Scouts and class parties and the one who prayed you wouldn’t disappoint her again. I am the one who left work early countless times because she wasn’t feeling well. I rushed to the school with a clean change of clothes when she didn’t make it to the bathroom on time. I stared her classmates in the eyes and lied when they asked why she was leaving. When I said she had a Dr.’s appointment, her teacher nodded in confirmation and winked to say she understood. Afterwards, we went for ice cream, because we all need to learn to celebrate even our bad days. I have woken up at two in the morning to rub her back while she vomited and help changed the sheets on her bed. I helped introduce her to God. Not through damnation, but through loving scriptures, family home evenings, and family prayer. I’ve stayed up nights till midnight to finish typing a book report and have woken up at six a.m. to get your daughter to school for play rehearsals by seven. I clapped even louder the night of her performance when I noticed you didn’t make it. With tears in my eyes, I acknowledged her three months of hard work and commitment, her bravery and courage for getting on stage, and with pride I clapped as she re-entered for a final bow. Not just for her performance, but because I noticed her eyes searching the room for her mother, hoping she would see your face smiling back at her. I clapped for you, because you would have been so proud of your little girl. As I clapped I realized again that what I had to offer her would never be enough to fill the shoes she needed you so desperately to walk in. But I offered all the encouragement I could, because I am still her mother too. “ I may not be the one she chose to come to, as she waited in heaven above. But I am the one that our Heavenly Father chose to help show her a mother’s love. I may not be the one who gave her her first breath of life. Maybe she’ll only remember me as her father’s second wife. But something tells me all I’ve done, will be rewarded when this life is through. Not because I played my part, but because I’ve accepted the part of two.”
Who am I? I am the one who skipped lunch so your daughter could by something at a bake sale. I go without new shoes so our children can have them. I have worked all day, come home to make dinner, and then rushed out to attend Back-to-School night so our daughters would have a note from their parent in place of the picture they left behind. So they can smile inside when their teacher says he met their mom last night and she was nice. To see their excitement when they find their name on the class phone list because I took the time to fill it out. Because I enjoy watching their faces as they explain the artwork we’ve brought home from Open House after watching them scurry around their classroom to show us all of their achievements. It is with pride that I sit in on their student led conferences with their teachers. I have stood on the sidelines of the football field as she cheered and of a baseball field as she made contact with the ball for the first time, looking back at her coach for a clue of what to do next. I cheered, I clapped, and I helped rally other parents. I would leave work early because I knew I would be the only one of her parents to be there to share her victory or comfort her defeat. I was there because I wanted to be there, not because my family would have looked down on me if I didn’t go. I have never walked away from being a mother, because I know our children are watching, both yours and mine. I know that I must be the one that they find their examples from, that every word I say can either make or break their day. We have girl’s night out on Friday’s so we can spend time together, bonding. They know they can tell me things I won’t repeat, they can ask questions I won’t laugh at. They know I will speak the truth, plain and clear, in words they’ll understand.
Who am I? I am the one who drives your daughter to your home because you want to see her for a couple days. The one who watches to make sure she gets in okay, because I know you wont come out to say, “hey, thanks for going out of your way to bring her over.” I am the mother who took her to the Dr.’s office when she was sick or when she came home from your house covered in flee bites. I know her Pediatrician, her dentist, her teachers, her Girl Scout leaders, and the school office ladies by first and last name, because I have met them again and again. I am the one who has sat next to you at the events you attended so your daughter could see us get along. I have counseled your daughter when she was upset about seeing you fight with your boyfriend. I tried to explain that adults, like sisters, have a hard time being with each other every day and night. That sometimes, even though they say they need a break from each other for awhile, they still love each other. That it’s easier to walk away from someone you aren’t committed to, but that one day, when you were married, that would hopefully change. I am the one that you despise, though I have done nothing but love your daughter and treat her as my own. I pity the need you have to constantly remind your daughter that I am her stepmother and that her sisters are not of her own flesh and blood. It is not blood that makes you family, it is love. How sad that you did not learn this in your own family. I don’t know what it is like to have a mother who is controlling, who reminds you of your poor choices each day, who is more concerned about the family name than the family unit itself. I don’t know about these ways in which you were raised, but seeing your true colors makes it easier to understand why you feel so threatened by me. You say I have no right to get involved, that this is between you and your ex-husband. How wrong you are. I don’t know when it happened, but sometime between the day I met her father and this moment I am living now, she became a part of my heart as well. I can not just stand by and allow someone call my daughter a liar or give her a guilt trip until she breaks into tears. I made vows to the Lord above that I would protect his children and mine, and she is also my child.
Who am I? I am the one who has swallowed many guile words because I know that voicing them would not hurt you, but her. Because I know that her pain is not worth my vengeance. I am the name you removed from the emergency contact card at school so you could place your name in the spot as mother. As though mothers were made up of women who have given birth. How naïve you are to believe it could be so simple. To believe you can wake up on any given day and say, “Today, I’m ready to be a mother.” Just as I can not fill the shoes of the mother your daughter used to ask for, you will never be able to walk the path that I have walked, with your daughter by my side. You can not take her hand in yours and feel her take your hand back like I have. That is an experience earned by trust and loyalty and time. Just because you have chosen to take an active role in her life again, because you are finally ready to put your daughter up higher on your list of priorities, because you feel you’re ready to put behind the things that make you happy – Is it fair to ask her to do the same? Do you even care about how she feels? A real mother would care. You can call yourself her mother each day and tell her I am nothing to either of you. But she and I know better. To her, I have always been there. In the good times and the bad. Though life has not always been easy for us, we’ve managed to become friends, she and I. I have gone nose to nose with a child who constantly asks why we have rules when her mother doesn’t have any. But that’s okay. My reward from not backing down comes in the package of wild laughter as she tells me how she waited outside until 8:00 at night, just to see if you would call her in to do homework. She tells me how you take her shopping to buy her things she wants, but that she’s grateful because I buy her the things she needs, I take care of her when she’s sick, and read stories with them.
Who am I? I am the one who has never walked away from her or my family because that is the easier route or because my needs came first. I am the one who gets on my knees each night and prays for her safety and who asks the Lord to watch over her and comfort her when her mind is confused and her heart is aching. I am not just the woman who married her father. I’m the one she introduces to her friends as “mom”.
