KB and Me_(1)

The following story is true, and accurate, as best to my recollection. If it was fiction, it would have had a much happier ending.


“What are your intentions with my mom?’

Those were some of the first words I can recall hearing from the beautiful 10 year old. Looking deep into her steel blue eyes, glancing back, over to her mother seeing the hope in her golden brown eyes.

“To love her completely,” was my reply.

“Good, for how long?” was KB’s next question.

“For as long as you all, and her let me,” was my reply.

That was one of the first nights that I recall talking with her and her mother, two weeks after I was introduced to her mother at a local store by my now ex wife.

That was all, just over 8 years ago. April, 2006. The year that I became single again, for the first time, in 13 years. Two months later, KB, and her siblings went to visit family out of state, and it all really began. Her mother and I pretty much lived together the entire time that they were gone, almost 2 months of the summer. I lived, at the time, in a comfortable, 2 bedroom apartment with the few things that I retained during the separation, and a few things that I had picked up for myself. Three months after I met KL, I essentially moved from the apartment, to her spacious 4 bedroom home on some acreage.

While the three siblings were gone, I celebrated my 33rd birthday. While they were gone, I got a text message, asking me about some of my favorite things. Three weeks later, when they returned home, KB brought home a simple brown box with my name on it and, in bold black letters “Happy Birthday.” She had gone to a few different yard sales while out of town, and found just the right things to bring home with her. Inside of the box was another box with a lighthouse lamp inside, and some small sticks to use as kindling. I had only told her that my favorite things were lighthouses, she assumed correctly that I loved to sit around a good campfire and talk.

Her birthday, was three days after her mother’s, so, I had gotten her a brand new cell phone, under my plan, to get rid of their pre-paid plan, and give her the flexibility of being able to call… she almost never did, lol. When she talked with almost everyone, it was in text, which, luckily, we had gotten unlimited messaging. The rest of that year was pretty uneventful, with school, holidays, and just life in general.

The next summer, since I worked for the school system, she asked if she could come and help clean over the summer. I gladly let her, she was amazing company, and a hell of a little worker. She was always remarking how dirty the little kids could be, meaning the mess in the rooms. I just explained that we only have 3 months to clean what takes them 9 months to dirty, and she just nodded and gave me that huge smile she was always ready with. I didn’t want to keep her from her friends or anything she wanted to do, so I only brought her with me about once a week, to work. When I got home, she usually had that bored look on her face and asked me how it had gone, almost wishing that I would let her come with me more often. Even at 11, she had a work ethic that would put most adults to shame. At the end of that summer, since my ex and her new husband decided to move out of state with my kids, we all decided to load up in my truck, and go to see them. It was to be a week long camping trip filled with fun. Well, it was filled with fun, rain, and lost flip flops, mostly rain. Toward the end we all had had enough of the rain, so we packed everything up, and decided to spend the last night before we left in a motel, opting for a hot shower and warm comfy bed to be ready for the 11 hour drive back home. Little did we know, less than a month after our visit, that my kids would be back where we lived.

That year, for Christmas, KL’s parents had gotten us a family pass to a local ski resort, knowing that her kids loved to snowboard. My kids had never seen skis, let alone gone down a hill on them. The first trip, we got them all sized up, and rented skis for them, to see how they liked it. Needless to say, the next year, when her parents did the same thing, for Christmas, we had gotten them all set up with their own equipment. My youngest, being so small and light, was tossed around on the poma lift, drug up the hill on his side, instead of on his skis, the whole time laughing about it. But, true to her form, that little angel KB, was right there with him, passing on her own runs down the big hill to take care of her little brother, and help as best she could. The year after that, when her parents did the same thing, my youngest wasn’t on the “Bunny Hill” anymore, he was going down the Black Diamond passes with the best of them, with KB right behind him, trying to keep up.

Our kids had grown so close in just a year that we were almost literally the “Brady Bunch,” 6 kids, 2 adults, and two dogs, instead of the maid.