Where have I been? Well, it’s have been a heck of a month or so. My daugher’s grandfather died. I say it like that because it is her father’s father who passed. These are the people who did not want me to have my daughter or keep her. When I decided to do both, they told me I was on my own and abandonded me. I was 15… They did not see her until she was 12 and it has been a process of getting them to accept her in their lives. Many family members did not even know she existed and still don’t. Family gathering are hard for her because people whisper, “Who is that girl?” and since she is neither deaf or stupid, she can hear them. It hurts her feelings that after 15 years, realitives still don’t know her. I soley supported her and we moved out on our own six months after I graduated high school. My family was not supportive either. I can still hear the words of slut and whore being screamed into my face. I was neither, but to thier ignorant minds it didn’t matter. So, I left and vowed I would never go back or ask my family or his family for help. And I never did.

But God gave me a big heart and even bigger shoulders and I never bad mouthed my daughter’s dad or his family. And one day, we actually ran into him. And he couldn’t avoid her any longer. And he asked to be part of her life. And I allowed it. And it hurt, but I never told my daughter it hurt me. It is not her pain. And with him, she gained a brother and a sister I could never give to her and two grandparents who didn’t want her. But now do and have made great strides in accepting her and loving her.

The grandfather used to tell me with tears in his eyes when I would run into him from time to time that he was not allowed to see us or talk to us and that he was sorry. Here was a man who was a pillar in his church and a highway patrol man but could not go against the wishes of his wife. So, I struggled and raised my daughter with no child support and I worked two jobs. I had little money but I have a lot of love and I love my daughter with every single fiber of my soul. It is not her fault I was so young. She deserved to be just like all the other kids. So I worked my ass off to make sure her life was full and happy. And when her father and his family pulled thier heads out of their asses, I made sure she had them in her life as well.

I have celebrated holidays with them, invited them to my first (and only) wedding and had them in my home. I have been ignored and treated rudely but have indured this because of my love for my daughter. Her father tells me from time to time how much he loves me. It cracks me up. He even told me this on my wedding day. And on the day his father died. I love him because he is my daughter’s father but in no other way.

So, my daugher’s grandfather died, and I went to the family house to give my condolences, and I held my daugher and granddaughter as they cried. I went to the funeral and sat with my boyfriend near the family. And I went into the family room afterwards. And all the years came rushing back. I mourned the loss my daughter and granddaughter felt and I mourned all the time that family missed with the most precious thing I have, my daughter. And I wondered, how they could have been so cold to us. When we were so young.

My daughter’s father’s wife, I can’t say stepmom because she has never been one to my daughter, hugged me and said to me, “I wish you could have known Ron the way I did. He was a wonderful man. Without him, I would not have been able to go to school to be a nurse.” I hugged her back and told her that I knew him in my own way and that was good enough.

That is where I have been for so long; disappering into the past and taking care of those hearts that have been broken.