The beginning of the end?

This is a lonesome road I travel.  Or so I thought.  I was wrong, and for that, I will be eternally grateful.  This is history, past history, of how I came to be where I am today.  How, things out of my control, have changed my view of the world.  How, becoming a grandparent, superseded being a step-parent and how I became a parent Again.

First, I am going to bore you with my history.  I was born in 1956, the youngest of three -- all girls.  Being the youngest, I guess I was pretty much spoiled.  I never thought so, but my sisters say it was so.  I grew up, knowing nothing else, except being a Preacher's Kid.  That was my life and I dealt with it.  I was held to a higher ideal, real or imagined -- and struggled with it.  I pretty much did okay with that ideal, until College.  You see, I never had to make a decision on my own, they were all made for me.  Do you know what happens when you don't get to make your own choices and suffer the consequences?  You suffer big time.  I made some really bad choices, really bad.  But somehow, those bad choices led me to one of my best choices ever.  Gerry.

Gerry is 12 years my senior.  He is my best friend and my lover.  He is my husband.  We met when I was in my final year of a two year college.  I fell in love with his eyes and his smile.  So kind.  So strong.  So wrong.  Or at least, that is what my parents said.  He was older, divorced and had 3 kids.  My parents saw the road ahead, but I didn't.  They were partially right and so was I.  That was 35 years ago.

Gerry and his ex were married for 7 years.  They had Wendy, Matt and Paul.  When Paul was still quite young, Jan decided that being married to Gerry wasn't what she wanted, they fought and argued -- life was all round miserable.  She eventually filed for divorce and three days after it was finalized, she remarried.  Did I mention she was pregnant at the time with her 4th child?  No, this last one wasn't Gerry's.  Sounds like fodder for Jerry Springer.  Anyhow, two years after their divorce, I met Gerry and we got married in 1977, I was just shy of my 21st birthday.   Charming woman that she was, she had her young children convinced that I was the devil incarnate and that I had broken up their parents.  And kids, being kids, wanting to believe their mother, bought it.  I was new to parenting and at that time, there was no books or classes on being the step parent, so I made a lot of mistakes.  But, I kept trying.  I loved Gerry and really wanted to have some type of relationship with the kids.

Fast forward a few years, a whole lot of struggles with being a young (and I mean young) step parent, the day came when I became a step grandmother.  Like everything in this family, it was disjointed and confusing.  Paul, the youngest, had met an "older" woman, who managed to get him into her bed when he was 16.  That was when Brandon was born.  At the time, Jan was still alive, so I was not the grandmother to be bothered with, that was her job.  I was the accessory.  I sadly do not have much of a relationship with Brandon to this day, but thanks to Facebook, we are "friends".  Basically, we know each other exists, but that is the end of it.  Brandon is father to a little boy, Vincent.  I have never met Vincent and probably never will.  I have come to grips with that.  Back to Paul.  Paul eventually met Tina B.  -- a match made in hell.  Also an older woman (not by much), she had just lost a baby by another fellow.  She remembered Paul from school, and if you have ever heard the term "setting her cap" -- that is what she did.  Paul was in her sights and she was going to make it happen.  She ended up pregnant, and just before the baby was born, they got married.  Why?  Paul had this strange sense of honor.  Anyhow, Katherine was born.  That was 1991.  That was when I fell in love.  The first time I held her, I was captivated.  So precious.  So beautiful.  So sad.

Right from the onset, Katherine was behind the eight ball.  During the pregnancy, her parents fought.  Not just verbal, but physical.  Very physical.  Paul kicked Tina in the stomach and left a footprint on her belly.  Tina did her did her damage to Paul.  They were horrid.  I have read where they say the negative endorphin's that are produced by a pregnant woman are very damaging to a developing fetus.  I believe it.  Then there was the night we saw Tina at the Fireman's Field Days, totally, mind numbing drunk.  God only knows, what damage she did that night.  We don't really know if there were other times when she was drunk or drinking during the pregnancy, but I believe she did.  Doesn't matter -- that one night of binge drinking when pregnant did enough damage.