a love story Part II

hmmmm, seems to me i left off right where it was getting kinda interesting. . . a Christmas brunch, a forgotten camera, and my mother.
it was December, 1990 in Phoenix. my sister and i were unable to make it home that year so our folks were on their own for the holidays. a woman in my parent's Sunday School class had passed away and left her husband very unexpectedly alone at Christmas. her grown children had come in for her funeral and to spend some time with their father.
now my mother, being 100% Polish and therefore genetically predisposed to using her great culinary skills to heal all sorts of ailments, including grief, depression, and loneliness decided to have the family over for comfort food. my parents had just built a steel frame house with a lot of room for some good old world hospitality - and so brunch it was. (much later the widower would tell me how for a little while that day, he enjoyed the food and forgot for a time, the nagging pain in his heart.)
now one of the widower's daughters brought her camera - took some pictures and promptly left it behind. my mother found the camera and realized too late that the owner had already left for home in the Pacific Northwest. so well, she boxed up the camera with a note and sent it on. and from time to time they touched base with each other, my mom wanting the daughter to know that her father was being looked after.
eight months later my mother had died suddenly of misdiagnosed stomach cancer and my father found himself alone for the first time in 36 years.
Kris and i knew that mom had forseen this possibility and had made it very clear that he had her permission to remarry. now there were single women of an appropriate age at church and at his work but i think they were all kinda waiting around for a reasonable and respectable amount of time to pass before making their intentions known. (it was interesting - women i did not know sent me kind notes offering their sympathy and availability to check in on dear old dad, if that would put my mind at ease. . . uhhhh, yeah. . . ).
it was while i was back in Phoenix that November to help dad close my mother's estate that he showed me an interesting letter - a letter from the owner of that forgotten camera. she was writing to share her shock at the suddenness of my mom's passing and sympathy for our family.
she was also writing to introduce her best friend to my father. her best friend living in Denver. . .
my dad showed me the letter and asked me what he should do. . . wow! let me tell you, i took the easy way out and told him to call the best friend. (understand that my mom had only been gone about 6 weeks AND i was not looking forward to having THAT TALK with my dad about how the dating culture had evolved since 1955. besides, this woman was of the right age - old enough to be my mother! - and lived far enough way to ensure this relationship would take some time to develop).
ok, i was right about the age thing but suffice it to say that they officially tied the knot much sooner than the "ladies-in-waiting" thought "reasonable and respectable" - less than 5 months to be exact.
my step mom sold her condo and made a profit large enough to bring her daughters home from Hawaii for the wedding. that was amazing, since she had only made one, yes, only one mortgage payment before she met my dad.
i am not sure how supportive her kids were about this shot gun wedding (ok, there was no shot gun) but Kris and i could see how quickly and deeply they had fallen in love with each other. we gave them our support, our love, and our fierce loyalty.
they have been really good for each other and therefore, really good for us.
and yes, some days it was hard to balance the grief of losing our mom with the truth of our father's happiness. but it was worth making the tough choice, the choice to love a woman who so openly loved our dad.
so yes, this is a love story. . . a family love story. . .