PRESENT DAY SNIPPET: IN MEMORIAM OF MY FORMER STEPFATHER, W. CARL SPARKS

A recent piece made me reflect on the difficulties of stepparents, mourning loss three months after my own father’s passing

My baby sister’s father died exactly three months after mine, to the day, except Hannah is only 21 and I feel so deeply her loss for her as well as my own.

One of my favourite writers on this platform,

Farrah @Substack

, recently published a piece by writer,

Jessica Rose Williams

, about the ugly truth behind influencers' lives – spoiler: they aren’t all living the glitzy life they pretend to be. The piece is brilliant so take a gander here: ‘The lonely, curated life of the fashion influencer: poverty, sugar daddies and face-altering apps- what a social media star found when she moved to the influencer capital of the world.’

That piece led me to visit her Substack, The Simple Letter, which led me to another article Williams wrote about ‘Being a stepmom’ (also, brilliant – so read here). She describes becoming the stepparent to two girls when she had an affair with a married man, twenty years her senior, who left his wife for her. Their marriage ended. 

Her poignant, raw, honest look at how difficult it is to be a stepparent resonated with me.

Williams writes (and really every line is so good so I do encourage a read):

Being a stepmother was a job I never wanted. Does anyone? Snow White doesn’t exactly paint the role as a favourable one. I was 22 when I married a man with 2 children, who were 3 and 6 at the time, but it would be close to a decade before I felt anything close to comfortable with the title. I knew he had children when we met, but as a teenager head over heels in love no less, I wasn’t able to understand the consequences of this in terms of a relationship. … You can divorce your spouse but you can never untie the bond between parents. That’s not to say they’re still in love or their relationship extends beyond that of co-parenting but they are still in some sort of relationship that cannot and should not be terminated. 

It resonated not because I was a stepparent or even that I ever dated anyone with children but when I was 22, I slept with my married professor (written about here) who had children around my age. I remember how young, naive, and inexperienced I was. I never wanted him to leave his wife – neither of us wanted that. It was a fling in the way that Williams’ affair clearly wasn’t but the piece made me equally reflect on the two stepfathers I’ve had in my life.

The first of which was Carl, Hannah’s father, who my mother met when I was ten years old, just shy of eleven. We’d moved from England to Orlando and he was a truck driver who delivered to my mother’s work where she worked as an accountant. She’d go to the loading docks to smoke and they’d sit companionably and chat. Carl was handsome. Hailing from the neighbouring state of Georgia, he was a kind man with Southern charm and I can see how he swept her off her feet.

At that time, I welcomed Carl into our lives for my mother’s happiness. I missed my own father in England so deeply it was unbearable especially that I wouldn’t see him for many years due to various circumstances. He wrote letters to me every week. 

After my Mum and Carl married and moved in together, times felt tougher for me because Carl’s parenting style was so much stricter than what I’d been used to. Being at that awkward age of adolescence and confused about where this new ‘father figure’ fit into my life when I had my own father was troubling. I’d not have been able to articulate it then.

I also had competition for my mother’s time. We’d always been ‘thick as thieves’ as they say and this was the first ever serious relationship she’d had since my father. She’d had boyfriends but none had ever lived with us and encroached on our lives. I lament now how things played out. I know Carl found it tough, despite how much he loved my mother.

Something I remember distinctly was that Carl’s nieces doted on him and vice versa. He was a loving father to his daughters. He was loving to my mother.

Once when we’d stopped at one of those big gas stations in America where the plate glass runs floor to ceiling, a monstrosity of a building; we sat in the car together, Carl in the driver’s seat and me in the back, looking in the windows at my mother, illuminated by the fluorescent glow of the checkout and Carl looked wistfully and said to me, “Your Mom is really beautiful.” That struck a chord in me and I always remembered it. It made my heart glad to know my mother was loved.

Another time, I remember for my Mum’s birthday, we went to the jewellery store together and he let me pick out a ring for us to present to her. I chose a beautiful oval-cut emerald, surrounded by diamonds, set in gold. It was a smaller version of Princess Diana’s ring that must have entered my subconscious and my mother still wears that ring.

In our fraught relationship, Carl did try. He bought cats for me because he knew how much I loved them, he built a treehouse for me (only half finished but I could still climb up to the platform and I thought it was brilliant), he always allowed my friends to come over, raid the fridge, make us pitchers of kool-aid to drink, and buy in those (horrendous but delicious to kids) Little Debbie snacks. He’d borrowed a massive tent from one of his brothers and he’d pitch the tent in summer and fill it with air mattresses for my friends and I to have big sleepovers, building a bonfire for us to roast marshmallows (making s’mores), hotdogs, and eat potatoes wrapped in tinfoil. He even took me fishing from time to time, which I pretended to hate, and we’d go as a family to the Alapaha River to swim in the tannin-coloured waters, taking a cooler filled with ice and sodas.

He came from a big, loving family, consisting of his four siblings: Danny, Jimmy, Scotty, and Debbie, their respective spouses and children – and Granny Dot and Papa CJ (who died a little before Hannah was born).

I still have such fond memories of Christmases, Thanksgivings, Easters, Family Reunions at Ray’s Millpond (an award-winning restaurant owned by Carl’s family), and summers spent in Granny Dot’s swimming pool in the country under tall pine trees. Carl’s family never treated my mother and I as interlopers: they embraced us wholeheartedly. At these gatherings, there was amazing Southern food, sitting shelling peas and shucking corn, and the distinctive laughter of bubbly Aunt Phyliss with her Hollywood white smile (Uncle Danny’s wife) and young, cool, stylish Aunt Jackie (Uncle Jimmy’s wife) with a hot-shot job, whom I admired. I’m glad Carl had this big, wonderful, loving family.

I’m also glad that on his final weekend, his brother Jimmy took him fishing. I’m sure he’d have loved that day with his much-loved brother.

Carl had many friends, too, and I remember many backyard BBQs, cookouts, fish frys, and low country boils, filled with people – and even the odd company picnic or two where Carl’s work would throw these massive carnival-style events for the people who worked in logistics and trucking in the company.

He equally embraced my mother’s side of the family: my three uncles, Steve, Dave, and Tim. He loved enjoying a beer with them and chatting when we’d visit Florida or they’d visit us in Georgia. Carl never did seem to drink much back then – only the odd half-finished bottle. He’d drive hours for my mother’s side family holidays where we’d meet at places like Cedar Key, Sanibel Island, St. Augustine, or Ft. Lauderdale for motel and beach vacations. 

Carl was a good, kind, gentle man, but I was a moody, angry, confused teen. I didn’t always behave in ways I’m proud of. I made his relationship with my mother difficult. He always tried.

One thing I resented too was how he’d make me do homework after school before I could go online to message all my friends all night on MSN messenger. He only complained the odd time when he’d missed important phone calls because I was hogging the phone line with the dial-up. And he’d even bought us that family computer in the first place. I’m not even sure why now because he rarely ever used it and never seemed bothered about new technology. 

A half-decade into their marriage, my Mum, now 39 accidentally got pregnant with my baby sister, Hannah. Carl, now 43, was delighted. 

Hannah healed us all in a way. I loved Hannah with a fierceness I didn’t know was possible. We all did, every part of her. When my mother, who didn’t have maternity leave (thank you, US), stayed home with Hannah for the first couple of years of her life, I think that put a strain on the marriage, combined with the toll of my incessant unhappiness. My mother left Carl when I was 16. We moved briefly to Florida and then she returned to him and ended things again just before I went to university.

I did feel sad for Carl because he was devastated at the end of the marriage and, of course, relationships are about the people in them, but having a stepdaughter surely didn’t help make it easier.

Mum, however, always had the uncanny ability to stay friends with her exes. She never said a bad word against my father or Hannah’s. I tried to follow that example and never say anything negative to Hannah about her father, despite our fraught years.

It’s sad to me I got the best years of her father’s life. He’d been fun-loving, sporty, outdoorsy. He’d been unwell in later years, the years Hannah will most remember him.

Years later, though, I messaged him a few times telling him how much Hannah loved him and adored him, how much she’d loved going camping and fishing with him. I’d said how I’d hoped he was well; he was a good man and deserved happiness and I was sending love. Then, in another message, I said I was thinking about the delicious pineapple-mandarin cake Granny Dot (his mother) would make for family occasions and did he have the recipe, which he kindly sent to me. Another time, Hannah was in England visiting me and I sent him a photo of her with our Grammy and said I was keeping Hannah safe for him and he said thank you and he hoped we’d all have a wonderful time together.

That’s as close as I got to “I’m sorry for our past.” In later years, I had wanted to be kind. I wish I’d said that my behaviour as a teen wasn’t really to do with him, although probably when he was in his 40s, with a moody, sarcastic, and rude teen girl on his hands, he wondered what he was doing with his life.

Hannah has had to navigate her own stepfather too as our mother later met her current husband, Lamar. They met when Hannah was around 6 years old. Being in my 20s when Lamar came onto the scene, I could fully embrace my second stepfather, not least of which is because he’s a wonderful person. But had I been younger, would the relationship have been different?

Hannah has always been able to navigate this relationship more easily, not least of which because Lamar never got involved per se as a ‘parent’ but always as a friend, a confidant, a partner in crime. Hannah and Lamar are alike in many ways, they’re ‘besties’ and I love the easy, gentle relationship they have.

Hannah has beautifully navigated having a father and a stepfather, embracing her love for both men and their role in her life. 

Carl has been welcomed to family dinners, Christmases, birthday parties, the lot. He and his long-time girlfriend Aleyshia were part of Mum and Lamar’s now-extended family unit.

Except when she was a young child, I never really got to observe Hannah’s relationship with her father in later years. When she was a girl and we still lived with Carl, he doted on her. Her face lit up to be held by him, falling asleep in his arms; she was proud to have him as her Daddy. He was a wonderful, loving father. 

Hannah’s lucky to have both these men in her life. I’m sad she had to lose one of them too soon. 

The stepparent role is a curious and difficult one – it seems. Although now, I’ve had Lamar as a stepfather for longer than I had Carl, I will always remember Carl for his good qualities, generosity, and kindness: his laugh, his funny sayings, his singing, his fried turkey, the way he grilled a mean steak, and, most importantly, how much he loved his three daughters: Hannah, Carla, and April.

To Carl, who like many in my life, shaped part of who I am. I mourn for my baby sister and Carl’s family. May you find peace and comfort in these difficult times.

William Carl Sparks, 7 June 1960 - 11 May 2024