Reflections with My Step-Mom on the Transitions of Life

Before I flew back home from my Christmas vacation in Oregon, I had lunch with my step-mom Patty.

She is OK with my not calling her "Mom", and I am glad for that. At this point in my life, it feels like a step down, a step backwards. I prefer talking to her and interacting with her as a friend as well as member of the family. If I started calling her "mom", I think it would take away from the camaraderie that she shares with everyone else, including me.

We had lunch before I had to take off for the airport.

She and I were talking about the future, the opportunities which await me, and I was able to share with her how things have really improved for my dad now that they are married.

She then touched on something that she could share with my Dad before I arrived. My mother has been dead for nearly six years, and there is not one day that passes that I miss her. I am glad that she is gone, and I did not even attend the make-shift funeral which my father and sister threw for her at the South Coast Botanical Gardens in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Me and my Dad

I had said good-bye to her in November 2011, after the years of being lied to and manipulated, of her telling me what to think and why, and shaming me into submission to take her word for just about everything. I saw no reason to pay final respects.

But my Dad, that's a different story. My father had indeed helped me in many ways as I was going through the last five years. Major transitions had emerged in my life, and my Dad had been a key source of help, financially as well as morally. Would I be able to make it in life without him?

Patty hit on the issue very well. She explained to me Dad, and she told me how she had talked about with him: "I think Arthur is startling to realize that once you're gone, Sandy (my Dad's nickname), that he;s going to be alone."

Yes, in the sense that my parents will be gone. It will be just me. It's a strange place to be, a definite transition in this life. I do not have a family of my own right now, for example, and I am not sure that time and circumstances will be permit me to be married and have children. I just don't know.

It was a bit of a shock for me, and I had been talking with my Dad for the previous two weeks about whether I would be able to handle the shock when he dies. Patty told me that she was not prepared for her mother to die. She had brought her home for hospice care, and she would died only a week later. Patty told me how difficult it was to go through that period.

But then I have to rest on a deeper promise. The Christmas season is all about "God With Us" I am never going to be alone, and I will never have to wonder if I am cared for or not. Jesus died on the Cross not just to wash away all my sins, to ensure that I would remain forever righteous before Him and in Him, and that I would have eternal life. His death, resurrection, and ascension assure us that He will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13: 5-6).

I will never be prepared for my father's death. It's just not possible. That's the way it is, but Patty was really happy for me because I was thinking about it. She admitted that she had not thought about the grim reality which comes for all of us.

That recognition gave me a great deal of peace. I am not worried about the passing of my last parent on this earth. I was able to make it when I had learned that my mother died. I knew that she was not going to last long, since she had held onto her self-righteousness to the very end. There are other things going in my life that I am not happy with at this time, but they are no longer as overwhelming as they had been three weeks ago or even three months ago.

Me and Patty

And I am glad that Patty and I could talk about them as we did the day after Christmas.