Such a waste

And so the news arrives. My stepmother died last week at the grand old age of 91.

I have not had anything to do with Marjorie since my father’s death over 10 years ago. I find myself trying to understand my feelings towards her now.

Above all I’m struck by the waste. When my father first told me he was going to marry her, I was pleased. He’d been miserable living on his own after my mother’s death. Marjorie was an old family friend. Her son was the first boy my brother met when he started school & they went through the school system always in the same form, always the best of friends. In many ways Alan had always been like a second brother. They were among the few guests at our wedding. I was happy therefore that Marjorie too should become part of the family.

As the years went by, difficulties arose. As their marriage had problems my father increasingly turned to me. I am very much my mother’s child. I even physically resemble her. My father increasingly compared Marjorie with my mother in a disparaging way. At the same time Marjorie seemed to feel, as my stepmother she had the right to tell us how to live our life – something neither of us would have accepted from my own mother, let alone Marjorie.

Things eventually came to a head after my brother’s death when she happened to come in the middle of a conversation I was having with my Dad. We were talking about my brother’s estate & my father also wanted some legal advice on how to change his own will. She took what was being said the wrong way but she would never listen to any explanation either of us tried to give. By the time Dad died the following year, she was most reluctant to even tell me Dad had died. She certainly didn’t want me at his funeral. Throughout the funeral speech it was about how Dad left a loving wife & stepson. It was as though I had never existed. Mind you it had been like that at my brother’s funeral too.

I did phone Marjorie once after Dad’s death, to offer an olive branch. We had been friends once. In many ways I still admired her. She coped with increasing blindness incredibly well when you consider she had never before been a person to sit down without some sewing, knitting, crochet work, book or crossword in her hand. I would have given her any support she needed willingly, for Dad’s sake if nothing else, but she was adamant in her refusal. All she wanted was for me to leave her alone, so that is what I did.

I just can’t help thinking though what a waste. When my father had married her around 1980, I was so pleased, so ready to give her any love & help she needed. I knew my father would not be an easy man to live with. Instead it turned into years of bitterness & alienation.

Still I have given her son, Alan, my condolences. We do not intend to go to her funeral. She wouldn’t want us there & I feel no need to intrude on her family’s grief. Alan said he would phone in a week or so, & he & his wife should meet up with us for a meal some time. We’ve always tried to stay on good relations with them. As it happens we had been contemplating suggesting meeting up for a meal the night of our hotel stay before our flight to Italy. Maybe we will do just that...