Family Dynamics

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

So I was planning a post on how I finally decided between non action, grad school and law school but as I sat drafting the post in the bathroom (yes, I think of posts while I pee; it's the only time I have to think about things other than work) I started with, "My parents came up from Memphis the day I had surgery." But then I had to clarify the term parents. Parents in general to me include my mother, my mother's best friend and my stepdad. In this case I am referring to my mother and her best friend who I will call Kaye.

Kaye has been in our life since I was 6 years old. She and my Mom met at work and became friends. We all came to live together when she called my Mom in the middle of the night and said she was leaving her husband could my Mom please come get her. My Mom showed up to find Kaye drunk off her ass walking down the road with two suitcases.

She was going to stay with us for a little while. Just until she could get on her feet and get her own place. However, my Mom came to like only having to pay half the bills. She was a single mother working three jobs with no child support from my dead beat father. So Kaye stayed on. We eventually moved to the suburbs where we rented a house for a few years and then proceeded to buy a new one. It was the perfect situation for both of them. Kaye is originally from up North and had no family close by. We became a happy family. My Mom's family accepted her immediately and Kaye soon become just another one of my grandmother's kids. Up until the day she died my grandmother swore she had 6 kids and 1 adopted kid.

We all lived together in the suburbs until I moved away to attend college. Two months later my Mom married my stepdad and they bought a house in a different suburb.

It wasn't until my Mom married my stepdad that people started making comments about how they were sure my Mom and Kaye were a couple when they lived together. I was totally blown away by this the first time I heard it. My Mom and Kaye were best friends and nothing more. It never occurred to me that they were more than friends. Even when I finally admitted to myself that I was a lesbian it never crossed my mind that they could be a couple or that anyone could ever think they were more than friends. My Mom dated on a regular basis. Hell, Kaye even dated my uncle for a year or so. So to hear that so many thought they were together was insane to me. Still to this day it blows my mind that people thought that.

Kaye has been in my life for 22 years. She is my other mother. There is no doubt about that in my mind. When Mother's Day comes around I buy gifts for BOTH of my mothers.

So while technically I was raised in a single parent household, I really had two parents. And I was (and still am) damn lucky that I had the best mothers ever.