It’s a terrible thing to realize that you’ve known someone for almost 59 of your 65 years, lived with them for most of your childhood and young adult life, and know practically nothing about them. This is the situation between me and my stepfather, Jack.

He came into my mother’s life in 1965 when I was barely 5. Because his second divorce hadn’t finalized yet, they lived together in what was called “sin” back then (by both their families) for 1 year. I always thought their wedding anniversary was 12.11.65. It wasn’t. Add a full year and that’s when it really was.

I’ll admit, as a child I didn’t take the time to get to know Jack. I was a kid after all, didn’t have the mental wherewithal to analyze the situation, and was used to life being just me and Mommy. Then one day, this skinny guy with a big nose moved in and changed the dynamic. Of course, at the time, I didn’t realize that’s what he’d done. I just knew things were different now and I had to sleep on a couch instead of in my mom’s bed. The resentment for him being in our lives started right then and there and continued for all my childhood, through college, and even when I got married. But that’s jumping the gun on the story I want to tell, so let me slow down.

Jack was an odd man. I know now he was plagued by so much mental angst and depression, but when I was a kid all I knew was that he rarely smiled and he yelled a lot. A lot.

And at my mother.

She yelled right back. I’ve written before that my mother was the kind of fighter that if you went low, she went down to the earth’s crust in retaliation. That’s the way they fought during the entire 50+ years of their marriage. Dirty, mean, and nasty. And neither knew how to apologize. Nor did they ever, verbally, do so.

There are so many memories I have of Jack screaming, “I’m packing my bags,” and my mother replying, “Go on and run back to your shitty family who think you’re a joke.”

See? Earth’s crust for sure.

Not all the memories I have are like this. There was more good than bad at times. Because we had no money left over after the bills were paid, we never traveled or did things other families did like go to Disneyworld. We did the stuff that was free. Did you know there are more than 100 museums in NYC alone? When I was a kid, most if not all of them had free admission, so we’d take the trains and buses and the ferry from Staten Island and go into the city and visit them. Back then the Ferry cost 0.5 cents and the train was a quarter. We could go anywhere for less than a few bucks in travel expenses.

The Brooklyn Botanical gardens was a favorite, too.

The bad times, though, when they occurred, were really bad. Jack’s family hated my mother and me – no lie or exaggeration. Two of his brothers told her to her face, with me watching, that she was the worst thing that ever happened to their little brother. Since one of his 4 brothers was “connected” I grew up worrying that they’d find our bodies in the bottom of a ravine one day.

My psychotic grandmother hated Jack because he was Italian. Racism ran long and hard in her, and I have too many memories of the disgusting things she called people who weren’t just like her, especially when she was drunk.

Jacks’ depression took a huge turn for the worse when I was about 10. I don’t know the details- my parents never spoke to me about anything, even when I got older – but I remember he did something at work that the bosses were considering firing him for. It resolved, but I think Jack was demoted. A crushing blow for a man who already had a fragile ego. The fights after this time were more frequent.

Even though he threatened to leave my mother time and time again, he never did.

Misery loves company, right?

There was a time his weight skyrocketed to 250 pounds because all he ever did was eat, and he was diagnosed with kidney disease and high blood pressure. I wasn’t a nurse then, but even I knew screaming at the top of your lungs couldn’t be good for your blood pressure.

I actually caught him with an opened, one pound bag of M&Ms in the grocery store one night when he volunteered to shop for my mother. He ate about half of it and then put the remainder back on the shelf, still opened. I was so embarrassed someone had seen him do it and worried he’d be arrested. With age, wisdom, and a psych degree, I now know his eating disorder was a symptom of his depression. He ate because it gave him a sensation of pleasure – something he wasn’t getting a great deal of in his life. And he snuck the food because he was, subconsciously, ashamed he was doing it and knew if my mother caught him there would have been a huge blowout.

It’s amazing to me the amount of wisdom I have about his behavior now that I wish I could have had back then.

Jack didn’t smoke; didn’t drink. He had no friends – guy or girl – and his family looked down their noses on him because of his three marriages and the fact he never went to college. Only one of them did, so I could never understand why this was such a horrible thing for them to think of their youngest brother.

I never even knew he’d been married twice before until he was in the nursing home and by then 85 years old. He never spoke of it, and neither did my mother. He had no children from any of his marriages. His entire adult life was going to work each day, sleeping in on the weekends, and going for walks with my mother as they got older. I never knew what he’d wished his life would be like when he was younger. I never knew the root cause of his lifelong depression. I can guess, but that’s all it would be: a guess.

I never knew why he married and divorced those two other times, but stayed committed to my mother even though they fought so much. I don’t know why he didn’t learn to drive, something everyone in his generation learned. Well, except for my mother. I don’t know his favorite movie, book, teenage crush. I don’t know where he went to school, why he opted out of college when it was offered to him by his parents. I have no idea why his family disliked him so and yet hated that he was with my mother. It makes no sense. I have no idea why he had no friends. Again, I can guess, based on both his and my mother’s behavior when anyone new came into their lives, but it would still be just a guess.

I do know he was a simple, very private man who didn’t ask for anything in life other than to be taken care of. I do know he loved cats ( we had several when I was growing up), going for walks, and watching old western movies on TNT. He loved Hershey bars and Coke.

I never saw him without a button down collared shirt the entire time I was growing up. In fact, I’d never seen him in an undershirt until he was admitted to the nursing home. That’s the kind of man he was: private.

I have vivid memories of him helping me with my math homework when I was in third grade and just not understanding long division and fractions. He was patient, kind, and guided me in ways to help solve the problems by myself. I have vivid memories of how sweet and loving he was with every single one of our cats. They used to sleep on his chest and he never wanted to roll over in bed because they were so comfortable.

When I was getting married I’d elected to walk myself down the aisle because I wouldn’t choose between Jack and my birth father. My mother, naturally, was pissed I hadn’t chosen Jack. Jack wasn’t mad at all. He even said if I wanted my father to do the honors, it was okay with him. In all honesty, if I could have done so without causing a family war, I would have chosen Jack. He had more interaction with me growing up than my real father did. But if I’d done that I can only imagine the carnage I would have suffered through. The Red Wedding comes to mind.

Lost opportunities are so sad, aren’t they.

Today I meet with the funeral director to finalize Jack’s cremation plans. He wanted no service, no mass. There’s no one to grieve except for me, anyway.

Which I’m doing.

When I get his cremains back, I’m going to join them with my mother’s. Then they will be together in Heaven and on earth again.

~Peg