Last Sunday was National Stepmom’s Day. As I sat on the deck in the heat of the day, my mind began to wander. What thoughts go through a woman’s mind when she’s a stepmom and doesn’t have her own biological kids? Too many sometimes! Do bio moms ever have the same thoughts? I have no idea.
These are the thoughts I had, for whatever reason. Who will take and enjoy my many books and think they’re special? Who will take all of my Mamaw and great-grandmother’s curio cabinet and glassware, and realize the history behind them? Who will take all of the smocked dresses that my mom made, and the crocheted booties and blankets? Will there be any kind of an attachment to anything? Who will remember me with love and look back and think I am who I am because of her? What will happen to all of our family heirlooms? What will happen to all of our family pictures? Will anybody care about any of it, like I do?
Here’s a few more. Will there be a estate sale so anybody can just take what they want with no thought of its history? Will I end up in a nursing home because there’s nobody to take care of me? These are the thoughts you have as a stepmother when you don’t have biological children of your own. Maybe you have shared in some of these thoughts.
You might say Shauna, those are crazy thoughts! We will all go through things like that whether we have biological children or not. You’re probably also thinking who cares about the stuff after you’re gone. Both true statements, but those are just a few of the thoughts that occasionally rush through my mind. Maybe things matter too much to me, but it’s not really the things, it’s the memories behind them that mean something to me.
This is what I should be thinking! If my books and the notes and highlights in them help another life, it won’t matter who it is. To change a life in death is true significance! If someone sets an amazing table with the beautiful glassware I have, even if they never knew me, and that brings them joy, I left a legacy!
At the end of the day, these crazy thoughts are just thoughts that I push out of my head because right now I have too much good to focus on! I must change my mindset from these crazy negative thoughts to enjoy what I have! If we sit and dwell too much on questions like I mentioned above, nothing positive will come from them. Those thoughts will steal our joy from enjoying the here and now. I have little Emmie, and if nothing else, for the past 2 1/2 years of my life, she has brought so much amazing joy! She loves shoes just like Gigi! She loves dresses like Gigi! She loves every month when she gets a new book in the mail! She’s perfect and stubborn and emotional and funny all wrapped into one! So if nobody takes one thing I have, but I leave any kind of legacy in my bonus kids and my grandkids, then my life was well lived and I lived a good life! More importantly, if I positively impact or change one life, whether I knew them or not, then my living wasn’t in vain!
With love for you all, Shauna
Shauna's Sisters 