I wish he was still here to celebrate it. It made me wish a lot of other stuff too.

I always wished my father, mother, and sister had stayed in the area for a few years after The Curmudgeon and I were married.

Fact is they moved to Texas a few months after our wedding.

I missed having them nearby. I missed celebrating birthdays and holidays with them. Talking on the phone was never enough and visits down there were few and very far between.

I lost my family and remained here as the interloper in my in-laws’ son’s life. They never once accepted me as part of the family.

I often felt beyond lonely…still do a lot of the time.

When The Curmudgeon wasn’t present they bullied me, and when they didn’t do that, they ignored me. I preferred the times they ignored me.

I found more and more excuses to not go to their house on weekends, they insisted we make appearances. The reason was more for The Curmudgeon to work his butt off doing chores for them than for any form of affection.