From Single Man to Polaroid Parent in 8 Weeks

Most people have months to prepare to become a parent. I became one in 60 seconds or less, just like a Polaroid.

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It took me just six weeks to go from being single, footloose, fancy-free, not interested in a relationship and convinced all women are evil, to happily married.

I met my wife while on a blind date set up by my divorce attorney’s wife. I fell in love with my wife before I ever laid eyes on her. Seriously, six weeks from the first phone call to happily married. Without children, I might add. My new wife, Bobbi, had two daughters, but they lived 200 miles away with their Dad. Hey, even I could deal with two kids a couple of weekends a month.

At the eight-week mark of the relationship, THE LETTER arrived. A letter from my wife’s ex-husband and custodial parent of the 10 and 14-year old daughters that I had met once. The letter said that now that Bobbi had remarried, it was time for the girls to come live with their Mom. Bobbi looked at me and said what do you think?

What I thought and what I said were two different things. This was important to Bobbi. I understood that. I said something like, “As long as the girls are OK with coming to live with us, I am OK with it.”

At ten weeks into the relationship, the girls, and all their stuff arrived. Their dad drops them off, mutters something, gives them a rather perfunctory kiss, and leaves. The girls are now our responsibility. Talk about life changing!

Man plans, God laughs. I was convinced Bobbi and I would live happily ever after in her 900 square foot, two- bedroom, one bath condo. Then the girls arrived.

At the time, Bobbi was the manager of the women’s department for one of the largest JC Penney stores in America. She certainly took advantage of the situation. When I moved in, I was allocated 25% of a double closet. The other 75% of that closet was home to her off-season clothes. The closet in our room was home to her in-season clothes. Where were we going to put these girls?

We downsized, we rented storage. We squeezed and compacted and the girls fit. Barely. We thought we were going to have to move. It took about a week to realize there was no thinking; we were going to have to move and soon.

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Living with Dawn, the 14-year old was a challenge for me. I was not used to someone who had to stand in front of a mirror for 45 minutes doing her hair, so she could walk a block to go swimming at the YMCA. That was an adjustment. Denise, the 10-year old was easy. She was laid back, loved to read, was quiet and fit in. Dawn—not so much.

Dawn was angry. Dawn was resentful. Dawn was spiteful. Dawn pretty much did everything in her power to make our lives a living hell. We tried to reason with her. That didn’t work. We tried to punish her, that didn’t work. We grounded her. She ignored it and did what she wanted. When she turned 16, her Dad gave her a car. That made the situation worse.

Dawn met the man of her dreams. Now, she was never home. When we asked her where she was, it was always at ‘his’ house. “Dawn, you have a midnight curfew.” She would roll in at 2:00 a.m., immediately call her boyfriend and they would start screaming at each other. Their relationship was definitely love-hate (and was until they divorced.)

Days would go by without seeing Dawn awake. She would be asleep when we went to work, and come home long after we were in bed. If it were not for going to her basketball games, or watching her perform in the high school musicals, I am not sure how much we would have seen her.

This, obviously, put a huge strain on our new marriage. We decided to try family counseling. Dawn went once. Denise went a couple of times. One night, Bobbi and I were the last patients of the day. The counselor had been through a very long day. Bobbi was tearfully relating the challenges from the week and rhetorically asked what the counselor would do in that situation. The counselor, in a fit of honesty, looked at Bobbi and said, “I would have thrown her out of the house weeks ago.” We did not go back to that counselor. We were going to find a way to make this work.

Dawn graduated high school and started working. She was living at home, sort of. Bobbi, who had left Penney’s several years before, came home one night and announced that the company she was working for wanted her to move to Minneapolis. She was going to manage the corporate flagship store. She asked what Denise and I thought. We both said, “Go for it.” We put the house on the market, a For Sale sign was put in the front yard and two days later, Dawn came in at dinner time, furious we were moving. She asked why we hadn’t talked to her about it. We explained that in order to talk to her, she needed to be present. She said she was not moving; she was staying put so she could be with her boyfriend. We told her we expected that; we never thought she would be going with us. We made plans to move on with our lives.

Shortly after we moved to Minnesota, we received word that Dawn was pregnant. On January 11, 1992 our first grandchild was born.

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Fast forward two years, about nine years after Dawn and Denise had come into my life. We are sitting at our kitchen table in Minnesota with some friends, telling them this story. Denise is with us, enjoying the conversation, the story of how I met her mother and we got married. She had heard that part before. We got to the part about THE LETTER. Denise looked at us and said, “Wait. Dad did what?” We went over the story again, thinking we were just refreshing her memory. We even brought out the letter and a copy of Bobbi’s response. You do not throw stuff like that away. The letter from Bobbi said, “If it is OK with the girls, it is fine with us.”

Then, Denise dropped the bomb.

“He never told us.”

Wait. What? What do you mean he never told you?

“Dad never told us we were coming to Edwardsville to live. We thought it was just a visit.”

He dropped the girls off with Bobbi and me, and they thought they were going to be staying for two or three weeks and then go back to Iowa. Bobbi and I never said anything to them, because we thought they knew they were moving to Illinois.

I am not the brightest bulb on the tree. I will admit that. When it comes to relationships and dealing with others, I am not as aware as I should be, obviously. Suddenly, the clouds parted and the sunshine came through. Now, suddenly, it all made sense.

Dawn is very much like Bobbi—the life of the party and a friend to all. She was athletic, a member of several sports teams in junior high. Her life, as she knew it, was set. She was ready to go to high school with all her friends and conquer the world. That was ripped away, without any input from her. She was pissed and stayed pissed. Nine years later, I was pissed for her. Suddenly it all made sense. I have no idea why it took us so long to figure it out. I have no idea why the girls didn’t say something. It happened.

I immediately reached out to Dawn. By this time, there was email and voice mail. I don’t remember which I used because I was in shock. I do remember what I said. I told her what we had learned that night from Denise and how sorry I was it took me so long to learn it. I said I was sorry for what she had been put through and for not being there and understanding.

I don’t know that she ever answered me in words. She answered me in deeds. Suddenly, the lines of communication were open. We were able to talk about life. Just the mundane, small things. How is your job? How are the kids? What a relief! Mundane can be a joy. I don’t know that we have ever rehashed these events. They happened. We lived through it and have moved on. We cannot go back; all we can do is go forward.

It’s been 31 years since the girls came to live with us. I have been blessed to have these three incredible women in my life. I am so proud that I could be a part of Dawn and Denise’s lives, both the good and the challenges. I refer to Dawn and Denise as my daughters. They have been a part of my life for 31 years, explaining otherwise would be too much work. They have enriched my life to no end. Both girls have grown to incredible women and mothers. They have faced challenges, but they have come through those challenges better people. Bobbi and I are truly blessed.

Don’t even get me started on my six grandkids.

I am a Polaroid Parent. I am the luckiest guy in the world.

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Photo: GettyImages