January 3, 2005

Remembering a love un-hyphenated.

Hi, it’s me.

I’m coming to your inbox from the fog of a long writing hiatus and the tail end of Influenza A. No, it’s not Wednesday, my usual newsletter day. At least I don’t think it is. Who can really tell what day it is this time of year? I’m here in your inbox to remember someone special today: my step-dad, Gordy, who raised me from the time I was eight and a half years old, and who died from cancer on this day twenty years ago.

One of my favorite photos of Gordy and me, posing like we’re doing an A&W Root Beer ad. He’s the guy all Seattle hipsters model themselves after.

About a month and a half ago on Wednesday night, the evening before Thanksgiving, I was sitting on the toilet thinking about how Thanksgiving was the last time I saw Gordy alive, and how my son is turning twenty years old in March. Connecting these two thoughts, I suddenly realized it was the twentieth anniversary of Gordy’s death, and I had flown across the country to a funeral while seven months pregnant.

My son’s middle name is Gordon.

I don’t mention the toilet thing to be intentionally crass, but to observe that moments of grief can surprise us unexpectedly. A familiar scene, a song, or in this case, a brief moment to sit and think on a busy holiday prep day.

For years after Gordy’s death, I struggled with my grief through the holidays, remembering the last time I saw him, the last time I spoke to him, and the morning of January 3rd when I heard from my mom that he was gone. I thought I would never feel joy at Christmastime again. And then I guess I did, eventually. I’m not sure when it happened. Grief doesn’t operate like a light switch. It operates like a man standing in the front yard who is waving as you drive away, his figure growing smaller and smaller in your review mirror, until one day, you glance into it and see nothing but horizon.

How long had it been since I last saw him standing there?

Gordy didn’t have to love me like a daughter—he chose to. I felt his fatherly love throughout my entire life with him, even when I was the bratty teenager he grounded for sneaking out with my friends at night. His love was not words or performance. It was laughter and teasing and presence and discipline. I yelled things at him like, you don’t understand anything! and I hate you! just like any teenager does. When he mentioned how I was still biting my fingernails, he annoyed me just like any twenty-two-year-old would be annoyed. I didn’t have to pretend or be on guard around him.

When he died, my husband Bryan observed that his love for me wasn’t hyphenated, step-dad. It was a dad love.

The legacy of Gordy’s dad love is that I promised myself I wouldn’t be afraid to marry someone who already had kids or who had been married before. Despite the cultural zeitgeist of the wicked step-mother trope at the time, I lived a different story, one that I was willing to recreate. I don’t recall if I ever mentioned this to Gordy when he was alive.

When I met Bryan, he was new to Seattle and recovering from a six-year marriage that had recently ended. It’s not like I looked at him and thought, I’m gonna marry that guy because he’s divorced. Rather, I saw a kind and generous soul whose past did not deter me. Gordy did that for me. He made it possible for me to love the man I’ve been married to for twenty-three and a half years.

Shout-out to all the loving step-parents who are reading this today, and to the step-grandparents like my Grandpa George who sat me on his lap and said I could call him Grandpa if I wanted to. I did. And I laughed when he held the stubby fingers he lost in a table saw accident to his face, making it look like his fingers were two knuckles deep into his nose.

Assuming you’re not of the wicked step-mother variety, thank you for being a special person to the kids in your life, I understand how complicated it can be, and also how life-giving. I hope my experience and perspective is helpful.

Until next time,

Jen

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When You Reach the End

by Cloud Cult

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👋 If someone came to mind while reading this, please help them find me!

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🎁 Give yourself something to look forward to every week!