“That’s okay. I’ll watch him while you go into the ocean with your mom and dad.”
The smallest boy, about one-and-a-half, watched his brother run off, turned to me and reached up. Of course I picked him up, sat him on my lap and offered him some fries. We waved to the family down in the water, ate chips and just chilled out.
Suddenly, he slipped off my lap, took my hand and pulled me toward the water. I walked him to the edge, and he giggled when the water lapped over his feet. When a bigger wave came and hit his legs even harder, he started laughing. I scooped him up, swung him around, put him on my hip and walked over to his mom and dad.
“What a cutie he is,” I said.
“Oh, he’s very afraid of the water. I can’t believe he’s in the water at all.”
I told them that he had taken my hand and pulled me in. “I told your son Alex that I have a son named Alex at home. Your little one is so cute. What’s his name?”
“Cameron.”
And my heart stopped. I looked into that little boy’s eyes, and he looked right back and touched my face.
Thank you, Cameron.
Dawn Holt
I Still Choose “Mom”
I watched through blurred vision as my husband, Chuck, walked away with his ex-wife.
The heaviness in all our hearts was almost unbearable. Turning back to my stepson’s casket I somehow helped my children pluck a rose from the brother spray to press in their Bibles. With tears streaming down my face, I rested my hand on the son spray. I no longer knew my place.
God, I silently screamed, how did I fit in Conan’s life?
From the moment I’d met my stepson, I was in awe of this angelic little boy whose bright, blond hair seemed to glow with a heavenly radiance. At only a year-and-a-half, he was built like a three-year-old. Solid and stocky, sleeping curled in my lap, his tiny heart beat against mine, and a maternal bonding began stirring inside me.
Within a year I became a stepmother to Conan and his older sister, Lori. Soon after that, a visit to the doctor revealed some disheartening news.
“You have an infertility disease,” the doctor had said. “You might not ever have children of your own.”
At twenty-two, that news was shattering. I had always wanted to be a mother. Suddenly, I realized being a stepmother might be as close as I would get, and I became even more involved in their lives.
But thankfully, four years later we joyfully discovered I was pregnant. Chase was born, then two years later we were blessed with our daughter, Chelsea.
I loved being both a mom and a stepmother, but as in any blended family, it had its ups and downs. Chuck’s ex-wife had custody of his kids and gave them more freedom than we gave our children. Needing to be consistent with our rules, I’m certain we appeared overly strict to his kids. On their weekend visitations, I usually felt like an old nag.
As a second wife, I was jealous of my stepchildren’s mother. I complained about her and her husband within earshot of my stepkids, and even grumbled about buying my stepchildren extras on top of paying child support. Somehow I overlooked the important fact that my step-children were the innocent ones thrust into a blended family.
Then one day at a gathering of my own family, I watched as my mother went up to my stepmother and gave her a hug. I turned and saw my father and stepfather laughing together. Having always appreciated the cooperative relationship my parents and stepparents had, it occurred to me that Chuck’s children longed for the same. So Chuck and I decided to work hard at bridging gaps instead of creating them.
It wasn’t easy, and changes didn’t come overnight, but they did come. By the time Conan was fifteen, a peace had settled between parents and stepparents. Instead of griping about child-support payments, we voluntarily increased them. And finally Conan’s mom gave us copies of his report cards and football schedules.
I was proud of my kids and stepkids. After graduation, my stepdaughter married, and she and her husband built a house together. At seventeen, Conan had become a sensible, intelligent young man. With rugged good looks and a deep, baritone voice, I wondered what fortunate girl would snatch him up.
But then came that phone call, changing our lives forever—Conan was killed instantly by a drunk driver.
Over the years we’d been married, Chuck had reassured me that I was a parent to his children, too. He sought my opinion in matters concerning them and relied on me to make their Christmases and birthdays special. I enjoyed doing those things and looked upon myself as their second mother.
But in his grief immediately upon Conan’s death, Chuck suddenly stopped seeking my opinion and began turning to his ex-wife. I knew they had to make many final decisions together, and I realized later that he was trying to spare me from the gruesom details, but for the first time, I began to feel like an outsider instead of a parent.
I also knew the driver responsible for the accident had to be prosecuted, which meant Chuck and his ex-wife would have to stay in contact. Those ugly jealousies from the past began to resurface when, night after night, he talked to her, seldom discussing their conversations with me.
And it stung when friends inquired only about Chuck’s coping, or sent sympathy cards addressed just to him, forgetting about me and even our two children. Some belittled my grieving because I was “just” a stepparent. Did anyone realize my loss and pain? I’d had strong maternal feelings for Conan; he considered me his second mother— or did he? As the weeks turned into months, that question haunted me, dominating my thoughts. I became driven to understand just what my role had been.
I rummaged through boxes of photos and dug out old journals, searching the house for mementos, even Christmas ornaments he had made.
There were several comforting journal excerpts, one describing Mother’s Day phone calls from Conan to me, and a beautiful white poinsettia he gave me at Christmas. And I cherished the memories old photos brought back— his loving bear hugs after cooking his favorite meal—or a kiss for simply doing his laundry. As comforting as these things were, they still weren’t enough.
One beautiful spring day, almost a year after he died, I was lovingly caressing the pressed rose from his grave that I kept in my Bible. Suddenly, I felt compelled to visit his grave alone. I had never done that before, but I desperately needed some answers.
Arriving at the gravesite, I remembered Chuck mentioning that the permanent headstone had recently arrived. Chuck had told Conan’s mom to select what she wanted. As I looked down on the shiny marble surface, I noticed she had chosen a bronze sports emblem, along with a picture of Conan that had been permanently embedded under a thick layer of glass.
I bent down and lovingly ran my fingers over his engraved name and the dates commemorating his short life. Through a mist of tears, memories of a rambunctious, fun-loving little boy filled my heart. The child I’d mothered part-time for so many years may not have come through my body, but I had been chosen by God to provide a maternal influence in his life. Not to take his mother’s place, but to be just a “step” away. I suddenly felt very honored to have been chosen.
“It was a privilege to be your stepmother,” I whispered out loud, bending to kiss his picture.
Finally, a sense of peace was beginning. With a heavy sigh, I got up to leave. But as I turned to walk away, the sun glistened on the border of the headstone, causing me to look back.
“Oh my gosh! How could I have not noticed it before?”
The entire border of the headstone was trimmed in gold shafts of wheat . . . exactly like a gold shaft-of-wheat pin Conan had given me years ago. Chills ran up and down my spine. I hadn’t seen that pin in years.
Somehow, I just knew it was the missing link. I had to find that pin.
The ride home was a blur. I was so excited. Finally, I was upstairs in my bedroom tearing apart my jewelry box. Where was it? Dumping the contents on the bed, I frantically tossed earrings and pins to and fro.
Nothing.
God, this is important. Please h
elp me find it, I prayed.
Turning from the bed I felt compelled to search my dresser. Rummaging through drawer after drawer proved futile, until finally, in the last drawer, clear in the back I felt it. It was a small, white box with my name scribbled on top in a child’s handwriting. Prying it open, I was instantly transported back in time.
Conan had been about ten years old, and it was the night before going on vacation to Florida. He was going with us, and I was packing in my room when I heard a knock on my door. Conan stood there, his eyes downcast and his hands behind his back.
“What is it, son?” I asked, concerned by this unexpected visit.
Shuffling his feet, he quickly mumbled, “I don’t know why I don’t call you ‘Mom’ very often, even though I call my stepdad ‘Dad.’”
I hugged him and reassured him he was free to call me whatever he was comfortable with. Then suddenly, with a wry smile on his pudgy face, he handed me the small, white box.
“You choose,” he said, and darted from the room.
Assuming I’d find two items inside the box, I opened it. Instead, I found the single gold wheat pin he’d bought at a garage sale with his own money.
Scribbled inside the lid of the box were the words, “I Love You. To Mom or Connie.”
That had been almost a decade ago, yet as I pushed the spilled contents of my jewelry box aside and slowly sat down on the edge of the bed, it felt like yesterday.
Thank you, God, for finding this pin, and for the closure that comes with it.
Wiping the tears from my face, I reflected on an angelic little boy whose heart beat close to mine.
I still choose “Mom.”
Connie Sturm Cameron
Ballerina
My father was a tall, ruggedly handsome man with raven hair and gentle brown eyes. His name was Bernard, and he was an avid sport fisherman. He used to take my brothers and me fishing from a rowboat on a lake, or from the shore of a gently flowing stream. He ran a tackle shop in the middle of Manhattan. The store was never terribly successful, so to help make ends meet, my father sold the exquisite paintings he created without the benefit of a single day of formal training.
How vividly I still recall the endless happy hours I spent as a little girl in my father’s tiny studio watching him put brush to canvas. It’s like magic, I thought of the way he could turn dollops of color into striking portraits, still lifes or seascapes.
One of my very favorites was a ballet scene a family friend commissioned my father to paint for his wife’s anniversary gift. For years the painting hung prominently in the living room of their elegant New York home. Every time we went for a visit I’d stand mesmerized by its beauty, half-convinced that any moment the graceful dancers would spring to life before my very eyes. Eventually, the couple moved away, and our families lost touch. But over the years that painting has always kept a very special place in my heart.
My father never had much money, but he did without so he could buy me the prettiest dresses or take me out for ice-cream sodas on sultry summer afternoons. He held me sobbing in his arms the day my puppy died and brought me special treats when I was sick in bed with the flu.
I felt so beautiful my wedding day when I walked down the aisle on my father’s arm. He became a doting grandpa to my three children, Tracy, Binnie and David. Once, when three-year-old Tracy drew him a picture, Dad put it in his wallet and said he’d carry it with him always. “That boy is going to become a real artist; you just wait and see,” he predicted.
I was only thirty when my father died. I felt so alone and adrift. “I’m not ready to let him go,” I sobbed to my mom the night of his funeral.
I missed my father terribly. There was so much I longed to share with him. How proud he would have been when I returned to school and became an English teacher after my kids were grown. He would have swelled with pride when David became a dentist, when Binnie published her first children’s book, and most especially when Tracy fulfilled his grandpa’s prediction and became a successful artist.
“Your father is still very much with you,” my friends and family kept telling me. “He’s watching over you from heaven.” More than anything, I wished I could have believed them. But over the years I’d never once felt my father’s presence.
“He’s gone,” I’d whisper sadly, poring through the family photo albums. “All I have left of Dad are a lot of happy memories.”
Then tragedy struck. Pelvic pain sent me to the doctor, and the tests came back positive for ovarian cancer. The diagnosis felt like a death sentence.
Surgeons removed most of my cancer, but they couldn’t get it all. “You’ll need several months of chemotherapy, and even then I can’t make any promises,” the oncologist explained honestly.
My family embraced me with their love and support. “We’ll get through this together,” my husband, Barney, assured me. The chemo was so strong. A substitute teacher had to finish out my school year and begin the fall term while I lay flat on my back for weeks at a stretch. I was so frail, I couldn’t stumble to the bathroom without struggling not to pass out.
Maybe I’d be better off throwing myself in front of a moving car, I thought more than once as I left the hospital after yet another infusion of toxic chemicals. How I yearned for those days long gone when I could curl up in my father’s strong arms and feel safe and protected from any danger. Somehow, I survived the chemo. But I couldn’t sleep at night, worrying if I’d also survived the cancer. A few weeks before Thanksgiving I went for a CAT scan. Then I returned home and anxiously awaited the results. The day before I was to learn whether I would live or die, I received a phone call from my brother Robert. “You’ll never believe what happened to me today,” he began, and by the time he’d completed his miraculous tale, tears of joy were spilling down my cheeks.
Every Sunday Robert visits an open-air antique market in Greenwich Village, hoping to add to his collection of cruise-ship memorabilia. “You were so much in my thoughts today,” he told me over the phone. “I was praying for you, but I kept wishing there was something more I could do.” Then, from several dozen yards away, Robert spotted a painting that was instantly familiar, despite the more than fifty years that had elapsed since he’d last seen it hanging from our friend’s living-room wall. “I didn’t even have to read the signature to know it was Dad’s ballerina painting,” my brother told me. “I’ve always remembered how much you loved it. I bought it on the spot, and I couldn’t wait to get home and call you with the news.” As Robert spun his tale, a radiant warmth filled my soul.
And then for the very first time since he died, I felt my father’s presence. “Oh, Dad!” I thrilled. “You really have been watching over me from heaven, and now you’ve come back to be my guardian angel!” After I hung up the phone I gave Barney a jubilant hug.
“It’s no coincidence Robert found that painting today,” I wept happy tears. “My father knew how much I needed him, and he found a very special way to let me know everything’s going to be just fine. My cancer is really gone.”
The next morning I telephoned for the test results, but I already knew the answer. “You don’t sound at all surprised,” the doctor said after informing me I was completely cancer-free.
“My guardian angel already told me,” I explained happily. These days, whenever I gaze upon my father’s beautiful painting, I think about how much I loved my dad and remember all the times over the years when I longed for him to be there to share in my joy or my sorrow. But my father never really left me. I know that now. He’s been with me through all my days, and he watches over me still, loving me and protecting me from harm just like long ago when I was a little girl.
Ferne Kirshenbaum
As told to Bill Holton
Mom’s Stained-Glass Window
Without faith, we are as stained-glass windows in the dark.
Anonymous
Pat Lewis drove slowly down the country lane that led to Willow Heights County Home. The beauty of the New Jersey c
ountryside—trees ablaze with color, mashed-potato clouds in a blue sky, winding little streams sparkling in the bright sunshine—cut into her heart. This was the kind of day that Mom would have loved. Pat’s mind drifted back over the past few years.
She’d not expected to miss her mom so much. She’d always thought those lunches out, appointments with the hairdresser, impromptu shopping excursions or even grocery shopping trips were mainly for her mom’s benefit. But over the past years, Pat had come to enjoy and even look forward to those times.
Her mom hadn’t made any lasting friendships while she was married. Then, widowed ten years, she found herself lonely and alone, except for her daughter Pat, son-in-law Tom, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who lived in faraway places. Living in Willow Heights County Home, she was surrounded by ladies in the same situation. Somehow, this did not draw her to any of them. Even though Willow Heights offered a planned schedule of social activities, Mom preferred to sit in her tiny living room and crochet.
Pat’s parents had both immigrated as toddlers from Germany to America with their parents. Her mom had been a typical German hausfrau. She had cleaned, cooked, washed and ironed, scrubbed floors, baked bread and shined shoes, raised two children, and been grateful that she had been given the opportunity to do so. She’d lived in the same little, white-frame house all her married life. Every Sunday they attended the German Lutheran Church, only two blocks away.
Perhaps attending those services spurred her desire for a stained-glass window. She never really asked for anything, but once in a while she contemplated out loud how nice a small stained-glass window would look in the front door, the top part of the big living-room window or even the small window above the kitchen sink where the morning sun streamed through. No one ever took her desire seriously. Actually, it became a kind of family joke.
When Christmas drew near, or it was her birthday, someone would be sure to laugh and say, “Why don’t we get Mom a stained-glass window?”