I Am an Ex-StepGrandma

Walter and I met in June, 1993 and married in February, 1994.

We divorced in 2001. That was my decision, not his. I told him I never stopped loving him, but there were unresolved relationship issues I could no longer accept. There were things that had to change, but they hadn't. The divorce was finalized a couple weeks after 9/11.

He told my mother: *This is not over.*

Some folks might have been concerned about a statement like that from a new-made ex. My mother, to her credit, didn't get bent out of shape by thinking about things like my old stalkers from the past, one of which had involved my parents a bit. She loves Walter and Walter loves her and she knows he's a genuinely decent man, and never the remotest danger to me in any way.

For a whole year, he spent most of his time away, on the road. Talked to me on the phone. Thought about things. Worked on some things too.

Eventually, those things that had to change, finally did. To our great joy, we got back together. I love that man with every fiber of my being, and I got him back, whole and happy, making me the luckiest woman alive.

We're now, essentially, in a common-law marriage. My ex-husband is now my common-law husband.

Walter's family all lives in Europe. He has no one here but us, me and my own family. He came here in 1985, having escaped political danger he ran into in 1984, back while his country was still under Communist rule.

I've never had any kids. I never wanted to, and I firmly believe that if you don't really want to have kids, then you shouldn't. I can say that I would have liked to have been a person who felt they could safely bear and raise children. I was not, especially during those optimal childbearing years. I know I made the right decision. Perhaps today, if my health and fertility were intact, it would be different.

But stepchildren? Boy oh boy. Oh, did I want my stepdaughters in my life!

Trying gently to help Walter work out his family issues, earlier on in our marriage, I once told him: --Hey. I want my stepdaughters. Don't you know that's half the reason I married you?--

Well. I took a chance with that statement, there. I got a nice smile out of him. But the whole family situation wounded him so badly, he finally asked me to leave the subject alone, to let it be. So I did.

Now he has his family back. I haven't spoken with any of them, much less met them. We have no mutual language; we can't communicate that way. One day I will. They know about me, and I know about them, and I am so proud of those two fine young women I may just bust apart.

Technically speaking, I am their ex-stepmother. As of yesterday, I'm now an Ex-StepGrandmother too.

That'll do just fine by me.