Part 2 - CaCa's Story

**This is a guest post by a reader who chooses to refer to herself as CaCa**

Never forget a face; never forget a daughter became my issue throughout my childhood and adolescent years.

After my mom and BF divorced, a custody suit pursued. Let’s not kid ourselves, the custody suit was between my mom and my paternal grandmother who I have been told loved me but should have invested her energy toward some psychiatric care for herself. She attempted to hire local people that would testify to my mom being an unfit mother and having extramarital affairs. Neither of which could be further from the truth. In the end my BF was allowed one weekly supervised visit at my maternal grandparent’s house. I never saw him again.

When I was about four or five my paternal grandmother died and a relationship with my paternal grandfather (PG) ensued. He had always watched over my mom and I, the best he could considering; never missing a birthday or Christmas. I can remember when I was very little he would come to my maternal grandparent’s house which was only blocks from his to drop off my Christmas gift. Then when I was old enough my mom would let me call him to arrange my own visits often times dropping me off and picking me up there. It was always one on one time with Grandpa and soon his new wife. Over all those years of one on one time I lost touch and contact with any other paternal family member. My BF had four sisters; there was a whole family I didn’t know. My BF would make me an occasional gift one of which was a jewelry box with my name inscribed. He would leave it for me there and my PG would gift it to me.

Looking back over time I can’t remember a time my step dad and his family wasn’t in my life. Even though I could never choke out the name “dad”, he is every sense of the title and more, I refer to him as my dad – the name never rolled off my tongue easily. When I was 4 my mom and dad met and by the age of 8 they married. I was less than thrilled about sharing my mom and I remember feeling like I didn’t like him. He had long hair and drove a loud Harley that he built in our living room out of parts in five galloon buckets. He would pick me up from school on it: pull my waist length hair back in a ponytail, change me into an older shirt so the oil wouldn’t spray all over my uniform and away we would go. Looking back now I see the sweetness and the tender ways but then I longed for my mom to continue every step of my life which turned into wonder and this overwhelming personalization of why my BF never wanted me. He could see me, call me, send me anything, ask about me, something….yet he never did. Soon I had been sent off for my first day of kindergarten, switched from private to public school, joined sports, entered high school, started dating, excelled in choir, cheerleading, and swim team, graduated, went on to college, married, and bought a house.

He could have been across the street as I went through the double doors for my first day of school, he could have been a face in the crowd cheering me on, he could have been peeking through as I stood in my white dress, he could have been but I know he wasn’t because I never knew his face.