佚名/Anonymous
She was foul years old when I first met her. She was carrying a bowl of soup. She had very, very fine golden hair and a little pink shawl around her shoulders. I was 29 at the time and suffering from the flu. Little did I realize that this little lady was going to change my life?
Her mom and I had been friends for many years. Eventually that friendship grew into care;from care into love, to marriage, and marriage brought the three of us together as a family. At first I was awkward because in the back of my mind, I thought I would be stuck with the dreaded label of“stepfather.”And stepfathers were somehow mythically, or in a real sense, ogres as well as an emotional wedge in the special relationship between the child and the biological father.
Early on I tried hard to make a natural transition from bachelorhood to fatherhood. A year and a half before we married, I took an apartment a few blocks away from their home. When it became evident that we would marry, I tried to spend time to enable a smooth changeover from friend to father figure. I tried not to become a wall between my future daughter and her natural father. Still I longed to be something special in her life.
Over the years, my appreciation for her grew. Her honesty, sincerity and directness were mature beyond her years. I knew that within this child lived a very giving and compassionate adult. Still, I lived in the fear that someday, when I had to step in and be a disciplinarian, I might have it thrown in my face that I wasn't her“real”father. If I wasn't real, why would she have to listen to me?My actions became measured. I was probably more lenient than I wanted to be. I acted in that way in order to be liked, all the time living out a role I felt I had to live-thinking I wasn't good enough or worthy enough on my own terms.
During the turbulent teenage years, we seemed to drift apart emotionally. I seemed to lose control（or at least the parental illusion of control）.She was searching for her identity and so was I.I found it increasingly hard to communicate with her. I felt a sense of loss and sadness because I was getting further from the feeling of oneness we had shared so easily in the beginning.