The other day, Alison and I were talking about her final project for college. She was writing an article about her relationship with Rob. We talked a bit about stepdads and how our relationships with them shaped our lives and the women we are today.
Stepfather and real father was a term I used, until a few years ago, to distinguish between my stepfather Ariel and my biological father Jimmy. Looking back now they seem like unfair labels. My relationship between Ariel and Jimmy was different from the stepfather in Ali vs. real father relationship, but there are big parts that are the same. We both became very dependent on our stepparents. With every important decision I was forced to make, Ariel was almost always the first person I turned to for advice. It was the same for Ali, he almost always calls Rob first, whether it’s his car window, apartment hunting or just to tell him about the most amazing deal he got on peach rings.
My stepfather Ariel was very much my real father growing up. If you know me well, you know these stories. When he was sure that geometry was a cruel and unusual form of torture, he would sit patiently at the kitchen table with me, going over acute and obtuse angles over and over again. He taught me how to bake. He was the one who accompanied me every time he found a car in the newspaper that he wanted to buy and, in fact, he helped me decide on my first car, a 1976 Toyota Corolla. He gave it to me at my first wedding. He tried to talk me out of my second wedding. And he was happy and relieved with my third wedding. He was always there when I cried, taking his handkerchief to dry my tears. When he would call him, crying, telling him that the marriages were over, he would offer to break both ex-husbands’ knees. He was there for every major milestone in my children’s lives and “Is grandpa coming?” It is usually the first question they will ask. Ariel is my real father and to this day I feel like I did him a great injustice by calling him my stepfather.
For whatever reason, Jimmy wasn’t a physical presence in my life growing up, whether it was my mom’s fault, Jimmy’s fault, or just a product of the ’70s, I don’t care anymore. I learned to let go of the awkwardness of being the only person I knew at age 12 who had divorced parents. A few years ago, my sisters and I went to Long Island to see Jimmy. As nervous and scared as we were driving there, it was a good thing, mostly. It was the first time we had seen Jimmy since we were kids and he had aroused all kinds of feelings for me and my sisters, very different feelings. After an hour drive home from Long Island, we weren’t speaking to each other and we didn’t speak to each other for months after that trip. The plot was based on each individual’s definition of stepfather and actual father, and that, I learned the hard way, is a very personal thing.
Everyone has their own memories and they are often very different from the person who grew up next to you every day. They are different from your mother’s memories; they are different from the memories of your grandmother. No memory is true and no memory is wrong, it is simply remembered differently. No matter how we remember things, our stepfathers are important male figures in our lives and have a huge influence in shaping who we are as adult women.
