the lucky stepmom

With the starting up of school for Lucy in September, I’ve gotten to enjoy long, sweet mornings with Zinni. Often I look down into the stroller, or the backseat, or the toddler bed, and I am overcome with this feeling I can’t quite identify. It’s a swelling of my heart, a deep love, a pang of sadness, and an enveloping gratitude. 

I feel so lucky to be this little person’s person, one of them. That I get to be one who spends quiet mornings together doing the most unhurried of things - puzzles, coloring, watering plants, going for walks. That I get to be the one to hear the unprompted thoughts with her ever expanding vocabulary. I get to be the one to notice the smallest of ways she’s grown, to share silences together, to be called for help from the bathroom. 

Sometimes I still feel a strange imposter syndrome, feeling like it shouldn’t be me here. Knowing I’m not her mom, knowing it was a series of unfortunate events that led us here. 

And yet, it makes me feel even luckier. 

Because I almost wasn’t here. I almost didn’t get to be the one whose hand she grabs and whose shoulder she still sleeps on. Almost didn’t get to teach her the days of the week, or to sing VeggieTales, or to identify the flowers around our neighborhood. Almost didn’t get to fill her closet and fold her socks. Almost didn’t get to tuck her in at night. 

So with every moment I watch her, listen to her, hold her, teach her, I am grateful. I am so, so lucky.