The Other Woman

Funny how things stick in your mind.

My folks split up when I was 12. In that lonely and unsettled time, when kids take on full responsibility for it -- and why not throw in Global Warming while we're at it? -- I was faced with knowing that my father was dating a woman the family knew from church.

I sit writing this nearly forty years later, and I can still feel the stab of his apparent disloyalty. Never mind we had known the family in Sunday School and camped with them: I heaped the entire responsibility for the break up on 'the other woman.' It couldn't be my father's fault. I loved my dad. I thought I would still live in the world I deserved if it weren't for her.

And that is how things remained for many years. Through a courtship, engagement and wedding that I did not toast, things eroded into socially disconnected holidays bordering on disrespect. I had clearly pulled free of my moorings with my father and was emotionally adrift. How I resented her for the attention he paid to her children while at the same time recoiling from his outstretched hand for me!

My father stood gently beside his wife, taking it all in, never lashing back in anger, although he would have had every right. And so we faced off in what I'm sure felt to him like an unresolvable game of Tic-Tac-Toe.

Time sailed on, through high school, college, and into marriage while my father's wife gently carried on. I pretended not to notice the love she had for my father, although it was unmistakable, or my father's irrepressible devotion to her. Why, they actually seemed happy!

It is hard now to imagine the faith and patience it must have taken to believe that maturity and curiosity would eventually win the day. Through hundreds of conversations and letters there gently did develop a small crack in the door, which I found the courage to nudge wide in 1985. And when I did, there was no list of transgressions waiting for me as I expected. My father's wife embraced me hungrily with acceptance and love, as if I had not misjudged and underestimated her, as if she had been waiting too long to welcome me home.

I lovingly refer to her now as Wicked Step Mother. Had I not come into womanhood with acceptance and reconciliation, I would have missed appreciating her many gifts. I would have missed witnessing a marriage of soulmates and learning the importance of seeking that for myself.

As I begin fresh, I hope that I will be as insightful and courageous in keeping the home fires burning should I encounter any closed doors. I will have faith that time will heal the wounds, and will patiently wait until whomever is on the other side is ready to step through.