"Step" father"s Day

 from Mr. Wilson Makes it Home...
 http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Wilson-Makes-Home-Happiness/dp/1629145734

     “This is Wilson,” said Cheryl who had taken him back from her daughter. She looked at him, and instinctively added, “Mr. Wilson.”

     He opened his eyes, and the long Schnauzer eye brows crossed a little, and he tilted his head to the side, his furry face showing the prominent moustache indicative of the Schnauzer breed that made up half of his pedigree, then fell back asleep, wrapped in the red blanket and held by his new mother, whom he had already grown attached to. Mr. Wilson had arrived.

     We drove away, and I thought how fortunate I was to have a family to share everything with. Danielle and Brittany had moved on and out of our house, but no matter how far away their physical presence may be, they will always live under our roof. From the moment I entered their lives it could be no other way. I like to think that the three great loves of my life came all at once, and no matter what may come, we will always have a connection that I had never imagined possible.

     That they were five and seven when I became part of their lives is irrelevant to us. We share a love that is every bit as solid as one created by conception. Some poor fool once mentioned to Cheryl that I would never know the powerful love that comes from having a child of my own. But Cheryl knew, and the girls knew, and I knew just how wrong that person’s opinion was. Somebody who has never felt what we feel can never know, for we have the luxury of knowing through experience exactly how deeply a man’s love is capable of running, and that my love for my wife and the girls runs as deep as it gets.

     I do not know how it feels to hold my own newborn infant fresh from the womb, and to feel the connection between man and woman embodied in the life they created. I do know how it feels to be accepted by a five-year old child whose ‘real” father turned out to be not so great, and after a period of uncertainty and getting to know each other, to one day feel her arms wrapped around my neck as I picked her injured body off the grass after she fell from our tree house, and have her hold me close, and comfort her, and wait until her tears slowed, and stopped, and her smile returned, and know that she felt safe with me, and loved, and that through me, everything was going to be okay. Being accepted by choice rather than by right of birth is as good as it gets.

     I wouldn’t trade that feeling for a thousand newborns.

 http://homewithmrwilson.blogspot.com/2014/03/dad.html