Love Knows No Boundaries

Things have been chaotic since we got back from our Southern California trip. Trying to wind down from the trip, a death in the family and Belle’s birthday has kept us going the past couple of weeks. Thank you to all who expressed kind words of comfort to me. I so deeply appreciate all of my blogger friends.

I wrote before that I thought it might be inappropriate to post about the recent death in our family however, I feel that this person deserves to be recognized.

Over twenty years ago, my father, Mickey, married a wonderful, beautiful, caring and loving woman. Her name was Minnie. Now, you know that wasn’t her real name; I have changed names of family to conceal their identity. Minnie was my step-mother and she was a great mom, wife and grandmother.

A couple of years, Minnie went through a liver transplant. Complications from other ailments prevented her from taking a certain drug warding off the liver disease. Eventually, she would have to have another transplant. A couple of weeks ago, Minnie was granted that second liver transplant. Unfortunately, she was too weak to survive.

I cannot imagine the pain that my father is going through right now and I certainly cannot imagine my step-brother’s pain. What I do see on the outside is that everyone is coping okay and as time passes, it will become easier to deal with daily life events.

For now, I miss Minnie so much. I am so grateful and honored to have been apart of her life. She taught me well and I feel as if I was am her daughter. Not everyone has a strong bond with their step-parent but I am glad that she and I had a bond. Her common-sense rained on me and because of her and my father, I learned who I am and who I wanted to become. They guided me and although they expressed disappointment when they didn’t agree with my choices, they made sure that I felt loved and appreciated no matter what. To me, that’s what a parent does; no matter how disappointed you may be with your offspring, you show them unconditional love and give them advice and direction but let them choose for themselves. That’s exactly what my father and Minnie did for my brother and I. I couldn’t ask for more.

Blood or not, I like to think of Minnie as my other mom.

I love you, mom. May your soul be free of pain and forever remain in peace.

July 1, 1950-August 10, 2006