So, #iAM not in the mood for naysayers regarding my ownership of my stepdad at this difficult time. Because if he should die before I wake, I will live the rest of my life in certainty that #iAM his full daughter, too.
Never desperately in need of my bio dad while my stepdad was in the picture. I don’t recall early childhood trauma, but stepdad must have been tsunami relief for my divorced mother and me. Their union was of common law, but noble and ordained by The Most-High-Sender of second husbands, stepdads, time-spenders, promise keepers, life-makers, and providers. When they were over in my teens, I felt the impact of separation just like a young daughter of married-on-paper-parentage.
A few days ago I learned of his stage four cancer diagnosis. He is frail and would be unrecognizable by me, they tell me. His candle at 89 is burning out. I am extremely grieved. He’s been remarried and far from my lives life for years. I’ve yet to understand why.
His wife is recently deceased and I’ve seen her online obituary. To my susrpsise, Stepdad has a type. She resembled my mother! Because of these things, my post-concussion brain, defiantly denied room for him when he went into surgery (pre diagnosis). NOW. His nonexistence all these years, does not matter as my heart is still irreversibly broken. It is just time for me to move through my new grief from an immortal perspective. Even though I cannot sleep, I sing Iko Iko with Cindi Lauper, in my baby girl voice, and weep like the unicorn that #iAM.