She Shines

This Week's Song - Sparkle and Shine - by Steve Earle. Everything by Steve Earle. Love the man and his music. 

She crouched and moved to the side of the stage after her third costume change. She was playing a total of seven characters in Candide, Voltaire’s novella turned comedy in an auditorium in Columbia, South Carolina. It was the perfect platform for Cori to show off her French and her striking comedic gifts. To the man with the graying hair (me), sitting smack dab in the middle of the theatre, the laughter came with a few tears. When she jaunted onto the stage laughter was not far behind. She cried out her lines in flawless French as another character shot her with a musket. It took at least 6 shots to bring her down. She eventually succumbed on the stage beneath the lights, laughs, and adoring gaze of those assembled and then went for the next costume change. Her mother and I laughed. Prideful laughter feels good. Cori Crocker is twenty-two and poised to graduate this week from the University of South Carolina with a B.S. in Marine Science and a minor in French. She will graduate Summa Cum Laude and has made many lifelong and adoring friends. As I watched in the dimly lit auditorium a couple of weeks ago I couldn’t help traveling back 17 years to when she was a kindergartner and the moment I watched her on stage for the first and only other time. It was just a few weeks after I became her stepfather. 

Zoom

No one plans on becoming a step-parent. I never even considered the concept. Then Cheryl died. No one plans for divorce or expects their spouse to die at the age of 31. Life happens. You have to adjust. Easy to say. Not easy to do - when you are 31 or, especially, when you are 5. When I met her, Cori was 5 years old. Her brother, Cliff, was 8. I had two kids of my own when I fell hard for Cori’s mother, Nancy. Then I fell for Cori and Cliff. It took them a little longer to fall for me. When she announced she wanted to perform in the Bluegrass Elementary talent show, Cori and I were just getting to know each other. I already knew her to be a soft-hearted and sweet child who was always aware of the emotions in the room. She was accepting and sweet, but still wary of the man who’d entered her life and married her mother. A baby like her is allowed to worry about life and her place in it when her parents divorce and a stranger with two more kids is all of a sudden in her life every day. It is a lot to take in for little people. I knew it was, and I obsessed about how I could be a positive influence in her young life. I didn’t want to be her stepdad. I wanted to be her dad. But, she had a father, one who has continued to love and parent her to this very day. Regardless, I vowed to treat her as my own. I wanted to play a large role in seeing to it that she grew into a confident, independent and intelligent woman. I wanted to kick down doors and provide her with opportunities. I read about blended families and consulted with a family psychologist about all six of us moving in together. I wanted to do it right. Cori was an observer and paid attention to everything going on around her during those days. When Nancy and I were dating, Cori once pondered out loud to her mother whether I might be Osama Bin Laden. She had no filter. Still doesn’t. Within a few days of becoming a blended family of six, she announced her decision to enter the talent show. We were a bit shocked when she told us she wanted to perform the Star Spangled Banner. What 5-year-old child decides she wants to do that?

When I asked if she knew all the words to our national anthem, she confidently stated that she did. She wanted to prove it right there in our living room and began to sing. Cori’s version of the anthem was unrecognizable. After “O say can you see…” she butchered almost every line. I told her it was perfect. Indeed it was. Telling her otherwise would’ve likely embarrassed her and crushed her desire to enter the contest thereby depriving a bunch of people of the cutest performance ever given. Over the next several days we practiced. I never corrected the lyrics, but instilled in her as much confidence as I could by telling her how good she was and how everyone was going to love her.  Several nights later, in front of a packed gymnasium, she brought the house down. She sang the entire song (well, it had the right number of verses) without accompaniment, butchering every line in the most beautiful and perfect way. Just like we practiced. She delivered it with such confidence that you’d thought she was Whitney Houston at the 1991 Super Bowl. I remember laughing through some tears, proud that I’d been a part of it and amazed by my new life and her place in it. It remains one of my most treasured memories.

My Girls

She loves music - like me. She loves dogs - like me. I make her ice cream cones when she comes home from school. Her mother and I followed almost every soccer game. She played on 4 state championship finals teams, winning one. I nicknamed her "Zoom," and still call her by that name. She loves that I love her mother. She loves me and has never doubted how much I love her. She told me how important I am in her life in a Christmas letter a couple of years ago - I store it with my most treasured possessions. I still think daily about how I can continue to be a positive force in her life. I will always think of myself as a father. I cannot distinguish my love based on labels. And, though I continue to obsess over the role I play in the lives of all four of them, I have no doubt as to the impact Cori has had in my life - I simply cannot imagine life without her. In our seventeen years together she has affirmed every instinct I had when I asked her mother to marry me and assuaged every fear and insecurity I had about parenting a child not of my blood. She has brought me tremendous joy and pride. Watching her grow into this unbelievable woman has been one of the great honors of my life. Step-parenting - I recommend it. 

She will board a plane bound for Africa in July. She is going to teach Science to French-speaking children in Guinea for 2 years as a member of the Peace Corps despite trepidation and admonitions from all in her life. Are you kidding me? She is defiant and independent with so much talent, love, and grace. That’s my girl, and oh how she shines.