For my Eldest

Today, The Eldest Child goes back to his bio mom for two weeks. Two long weeks. And I will miss him.

The Hubs will miss him, too. No matter how much The Hubs loves MiniMe and the twins, no matter how much pain the bio mom caused him, no matter how they finally became a "family" when I arrived, the bottom line is that The Eldest Child is his son--his first son. And that is special and unique and irreplacable. And so, The Hubs will miss him. He'll mope without realizing he's moping. He won't talk about how empty the house is. And when The Eldest Child calls their conversations will likely be brief. But The Hubs will miss The Eldest Child, nonetheless, because of who he is to The Hubs.

MiniMe will miss him terribly. Every morning he will wake up and ask if The Eldest Child is coming home today. And every day I will have to watch his sweet little face fall when I tell him how many more days it will be until his big brother returns. Even when I tell him "The Eldest Child will be back tomorrow!" with all the excitement and joy in my voice that the homecoming inevitably brings, he will still be sad because tomorrow is not today. He will forget how much he torments and harasses The Eldest Child, knowing only that his favorite playmate is gone for a length of time he is too young to understand. For a reason he is too young to understand.

There will be times during the next two weeks that I will stand in the doorway of his room and think of him, wondering what he's doing at that moment and what he'd being doing if he were here. I will dust shelves that hold toys he is not playing with, books he is not reading. When I do laundry, I will go to his room forgetting that his hamper will be empty. At dinnertime, I will pile the mail and other clutter in his spot rather than clearing it off the table like I do when he's here. Because if I clear it off, I will have to look at his empty seat next to me which will make me wish I could be telling him to chew with his mouth closed and not to pick his braces at the dinner table.

For the next two weeks I will wonder if he's happier where he is, and I will worry that he is. I will wonder if he misses us, if he misses all the differentness that here is compared to there. I will wonder if he is not happier, if he wants to be here, and if that makes him sad. I will wonder if he misses the chaos and activity and madness that is a house with three brothers. I wonder if he knows how empty this house is, in spite of those three brothers, without him.

I often feel as though it is written in the by-laws of being a stepmother that I am not allowed to love him "as much." Somewhere it is written that even though I know I cannot replace his biological mother, even though I would never want to, the very act of loving him as much as my other children violates those very basic tenets. I can accept that this is how life is. I understand that I chose this when I married The Hubs. But acceptance is different from enjoyment. Acceptance is different from making peace. And I have not done that. I have not made peace with this.

I never will.

No matter how many times he comes home or how many times he leaves, I will not make peace with this. No matter how well we all get along and how easy sharing this child becomes (I hate that...I hate the idea of "sharing" a child). No matter how much I accept this situation. No matter how much I understand the necessity of it.

I will always hate that my children miss their brother. That my husband misses his first son. That there is an empty room in my home.

I know I am his stepmother and therefore I am not supposed to view him as my child. But I do. I do because I know no other way to love him. He was given to me in a way that was completely different than the gift of my other children. And when we became a family we did it together, the three of us, choosing each other. Loving each other. Making a family.

So today, and for half of my life, my nest, my home, is one child short. And I have to accept that because I decided five years ago that it was more important to me to have him half the time than not at all.