Before the Beginning

2 weeks before my daughter was born, my step-mom died. My step-mom was single-handedly responsible for saving my ass. When my dad and biological mom broke up, it was beyond messy. It was bad. They accused one another of all sorts of things, my mom had a break down. I reacted pretty hard to the whole thing and effectively stopped communicating with her. It was the only way I knew how to keep any sort of even keel. My dad kind of spiraled down into a pretty deep funk and my sister was too young to really understand how and why decisions were being made. I was too young to understand, but at least I understood enough to know I could make decisions. We were a family broken in more than one very significant way.

But Patti came in, effectively whipped my dad into shape, pulled me up by my boot straps and tried to help my sister out. She got it right in 2 out of 3 of those efforts which isn't bad in my book. She was married to my dad nearly 30 years when she passed. The last 10 or so were rough as her health failed her. My dad was loyal to the end, working his butt off to take care of her. But it took a toll on him. When my wife was 6 weeks pregnant, hell we weren't even 100% sure, we all met up at a wedding. My step-mom knew from the moment she saw my wife, looked at me and almost visibly bit her lip. When we finally announced nearly 2 months later, all she said was "I KNEW IT!" There wasn't much more Patti wanted in life than for me to have a kid. I waited until I was 40 to do it and that was 2 weeks too late for my daughter ever to get a chance to meet her.

When I got the news I cried my eyes out for a few hours and then promptly went about the business of pulling my shit together. My wife was due in 2 weeks, we were living in a foreign country and we were scheduled to move into a new house in 4 weeks. This was no time to go soft. But we're in the new place, my daughter is 17 weeks old and although I can't say I'm hoping to find a balance in my life any time soon. I can see what the next year or so is probably going to look like. So now it is time to grieve this thing properly.

I really miss Patti and I thank God almost every day for the day she came into my life. I really wish she could have seen my daughter even just once. Even just a picture. But hopefully she's floating around here somewhere and I don't have to worry about her missing a single thing.