step-grandmother

Old photos show the family life I could have had

Sue Fagalde Lick childless stepmothers, family photos, old photographs, photos of children and grandchildren, step-grandmother , , , , , , , ,

Back in the 80s being “Grandma Sue” with Stephanie while baby Brandon snoozes. What are we looking at? I don’t remember.

You know how you move one thing in the house and then you have to move something else to make room for it, and pretty soon you have all this stuff that needs a new home and then you sit down in the middle of the mess to sort through old photos? Yeah. That’s what I was doing last night.  

I’m trying to thin out my possessions, so there was a point in sorting through packets of photos from the 70, 80s, and 90s that I never put into albums. They were all pre-digital, taken with cameras that used film.

I was rearranging my stuff because I didn’t feel like writing. I didn’t feel like doing anything. I got some bad news from the vet the other day about Annie–that bump on her butt isn’t just a bump. It’s cancer, and there’s a problem with her heart, too.

We don’t have a lot of details yet, but I have been in near-constant caregiver mode with this dog since she almost died right after Christmas 2020, and now it’s getting bad again. As she wanders around with the big e-collar, running into everything and leaving blood wherever she sits, she interrupts my sleep, my meals, and my work. Crash, boom, Mom! Oh, wait, I’m not her mom, but I do call myself that. Don’t tell anyone. So, there’s that, and I’ve had a cold, and the weather here has been one disaster after another. We have had floods, snow, landslides, hurricane-force winds, and now there’s another flood watch. I’m ready to get in my car and drive to Arizona. 

Back to the old photos. I found quite a few that I could throw away, bland scenery shots, an endless stream of ocean photos, flowers, somebody’s cat. When I took them, I thought they were artistic, but the ones I want to keep are the ones with people in them, especially family. I had a family once upon a time. I had my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, my brother and his wife and kids, and my husband, his parents, his kids and his grandkids. For a while, they were my kids and grandkids, too. The difference between me and friends my age is that their family photos go on as the babies keep coming while mine stopped around the time I switched to digital photos.

What happened? People died, lots of people died. But also, we moved to Oregon, 700 miles away from all but one of Fred’s kids. Plus, my sweet husband put out zero effort to keep in touch. It was always me saying, “Hey, it’s Michael’s birthday. We should call him.” or “Hey, what shall we get the grandkids for Christmas?” Beyond things like gifts and cards, I didn’t know how to go about getting close to the step-family. But I look at these photos of these gorgeous human beings and I remember days when I thanked Fred for giving me a family. If we hadn’t moved to Oregon, if we had tried harder, would they still be in my life now that he is gone? Maybe. Maybe not. I feel like I flunked step-parenting.

When you have your own children, the connection is made by biology. Even if you don’t get along, they are always your children. As the older generation passes on to the next life, there’s another group of young people coming up to fill the hole they leave behind. A person my age shouldn’t be sitting on the hearth looking at old pictures with no one for company but a deaf dog with a cone on her head.

Did I make two huge mistakes in my life, committing to a life without children of my own and moving away from the family I had, or is this the way it was meant to be? Life in Oregon has been good. I have had experiences and made friends I wouldn’t have had if we had stayed in San Jose doing the same things forever. We make choices, and then we have to live with them.

I had fun looking at the pictures. I see in the old ones that I was pretty in my 20s, 30s and even 40s–and a lot skinnier. I need to go on a diet! But I’m glad I have these photos, every one of them attached to a memory, a time I enjoyed with our combined families. It just ended too soon.

Working as a reporter at the Milpitas Post in California in the 1970s

What will happen to these pictures when I die? They’ll probably end up in a dumpster, but I have them to enjoy now, and that matters. 

You know that old Crosby, Stills & Nash song “Love the One You’re With?” Maybe that’s the key. Whatever family you have around, in-laws, stepchildren, nieces and nephews, cousins, friends, whatever, treasure them. Love them. They will not be perfect. But they’re yours, at least for now. As you go into a new year, think about what you always wanted to be when you grew up. Was it a mom or dad or was that just an assumed detour from what you really wanted? What photos do you want to be looking at when you’re looking 70 in the face like me?

BTW, I love this photo of me at one of my first newspaper jobs. I was HAPPY. Perhaps that was a clue to where I was headed all along. I loved mothering my dolls when I was a kid, but my Barbie was always going to be a writer or a singer. I never considered making her a mom. Go figure.  

Happy New Year. Forgive me for being a little nuts. As always, your comments are welcome.  

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Remembering “Gramma” Rachel

Sue Fagalde Lick childfree, childless, Clarence Fagalde, encouraging kids, Rachel Fagalde, Santa Cruz, Seacliff, step-grandmother
Rachel and Clarence Fagalde at my wedding in 1985
Today my step-grandmother would have been 109 years old. Mind-boggling. My father’s mother, Clara, died when I was 2, so I don’t really remember her. I remember Grandma Rachel, who married my grandfather a year or two later. She had been married before, but she never had children. I never asked her why.
Grandma Rachel was the one who encouraged me as a fledgling writer. She gave me countless books, all inscribed to “My dear little Susie” from “Gramma” Rachel. She always put the “Gramma” in quotes, as if she felt she didn’t deserve the title. But she did. She was as much a grandmother as any woman ever was. She showered me, my brother, and my five cousins with love, support and gifts until the day she died. Longer, in fact. A cassette tape she sent me arrived a few days after cancer took her away in 1991.
Now I don’t think Grandma Rachel was much good with babies. I can’t picture her changing a diaper. She was a terrible cook, her housekeeping was iffy, and the grownups tended to roll their eyes at the way she talked. But we kids didn’t care about any of that. She cared about us. She wanted to know about our friends, our schoolwork, and the boys we had crushes on. She wanted to see what we had made and was always eager to read what I had written. She was never too busy doing grownup things to spend time with us.
Perhaps not having children freed her to do these things, or maybe that’s just how she was. I don’t know if she ever grieved her lack of children, or if she quietly celebrated her childfree life. Perhaps with two stepsons, seven grandchildren, and a nephew and three nieces whom she adored, she didn’t have time to think about it.
Perhaps she had enough to deal with in marrying Clarence Fagalde. For most of his life, he worked as foreman of the Dorrance ranch in San Jose, California. When they married, Rachel moved to the ranch, where life revolved around the prune and cherry crops. The work never ended. When Clarence retired, they moved to a small house at Seacliff Beach, a little ways south of Santa Cruz. Grandpa fished and puttered around the yard, tending his “Garden of Eden,” while Rachel painted, read, and wrote poetry and copious letters to everyone, including me. I treasure those letters, and I treasure the memories of our many visits.
Not every step-family works as well as Grandma Rachel’s did. We’ve all heard horror stories about kids who hate the new wife, battles with the ex, and husbands who favor the kids over the wife. My own situation was far less amiable. But Rachel made it work, and so can we.
On this, her 109th birthday, let her be a reminder that we can have happy lives even if we never give birth.

I Didn’t Know How

Sue Fagalde Lick Nobody's Father: Life Without Kids, step-grandmother, stepdaughter; childless stepmother

My stepdaughter Gretchen took offense at recent postings referring to her. She was hurt that I didn’t use her name, although I was simply trying to protect her from embarrassment. Then she went on a rant about how I wasn’t involved enough with her and her children, especially when the kids were young. She talked about how her own mother took the kids home with her for long periods and spent lots of time with them. When I explained that her father was an obstacle to me being a hands-on mom/grandma, that her mother had first dibs, and that the kids were often with their own father, she said I could have worked around all that. As I pondered this, my own feelings greatly hurt, I began to realize that perhaps I didn’t become one of those huggy grandma types because I didn’t know how to interact with kids. Not only have I never had my own, but I haven’t had much opportunity to be around children. Mine has always been an all-adult life. Dogs, I get. Children, not so much. So if I didn’t charge in and create a close relationship, I’m sorry. I thought I did pretty well, considering. I do know this; parenting is tough, and step-parenting is even harder.
One of my missions in this blog and my other writing is to make people understand that women who don’t have children miss a lot in life, including learning how to take care of them. Sorry, Gretchen.

***
A while back, I talked about men’s views of childlessness. I just finished reading a book called Nobody’s Father: Life Without Kids, an anthology edited by Canadians Lynne Van Luven and Bruce Gillespie. It’s a good book. I can recommend it, although I’m not sure it gets to the heart of why so many men don’t want to have children. Among those writing here, quite a few are gay or were in marriages where they couldn’t conceive or carry a baby to term. Only a few say they just didn’t want to have kids. Men don’t seem to talk about these things with the same emotion that women do. The general view is, “I didn’t have kids because of X. Next subject.”

There, now I have probably offended Gretchen and any men that might be reading this blog.