Cynful Thoughts

Dear My Kids New Stepmom, I am writing to you in all honesty and truth, so that we can move forward in the relationships we have with my children. I want you to know that I do not hate you, I do not dislike you and I am not jealous of you. Having been divorced a few years, there are no strings I am left standing here clinging to. When the choice was made for the marriage to end, that was it for me. I accepted it for what it was and emotionally moved on. I am not one to act out of stifled maturity, not wanting to meet you, hating you, refusing my children to be around you or pretending that you don't exist. I have given my children permission from day one to build a relationship with you, even love you.  Really, it's okay.  I know I'm their Mom, and I know I'm a damn good one. You've probably guessed that by how easy they are to raise and how respectful they are of you and their father. And that's exactly the way I want it. I do not feel as though you'...

Little Tommy, ten years old, a child both mischievous and pleasing to his parents, holds out his hand as his tiny, softhearted mother presses two dollars and fifty cents into his palm. She kisses her eldest child, towheaded and wickedly smart, on the top of his head and tells him to be careful. Tommy bounds out the door, headed for the Chicago Transit Authority bus, where he would pay his ten cent fare and his transfer, to take him to Clark and Addison on the North side of Chicago from his solid brick house at 1711 N. Harding Avenue. He was going to watch the Cubs today, and he couldn't wait. Today he was by himself, so there would be no jumping and hanging on the cables that the buses ran along, causing mayhem for the bus drivers, as it was no fun without an audience of friends to egg him on.  Boarding at Pulaski and North Avenue, taking it to Addison and then east to Clark, while riding along Tommy saw the familiar looming building of the Pioneer bank...