JUST WRITE!
Lost and found
By Tracey Coveart/The Scugog Standard

I wrote a column a few years back about how I lost a family. Not just a husband, but a mother-in-law, father-in-law, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law and two lovely nieces. In many ways, it was the loss of my peripheral relatives by marriage - more than my spouse - that was the hardest cross to bear. While Jonathan and I were a bit like chalk and cheese, I got along rather well with the rest of the Schofield clan.
_It seemed so strange and sad to me that you could be a couple one day and single the next; have your whole family over for Christmas dinner and no one to visit on Boxing Day. It is a gross injustice that a partner can, without negotiation, subtract his love as well as his parents and siblings - all part of the same unhappy, unnatural equation.
_Equally odd, but much more pleasant, was finding a family a few weekends ago.
_In the way of all good oxymorons, the process was at once gradual and instant, taking both three decades and three short hours.
_Although Rob and I were together 30 years ago, I never met any of the Greenways, save for his dad, Gil, a lively imp of a man who has since passed away.
_Rob, himself, does not see much of his father’s side of the family. Like many of us who find ourselves too busy to keep in regular contact, he reserves face-time for weddings, funerals and the occasional milestone birthday or anniversary.
_He last saw his aunts, uncles and cousins at his grandfather’s 90th birthday party, shortly before Philip Greenway died some 12 years ago. When Rob was still married. When I was still married. When the two of us hadn’t an inkling that we would rekindle the sparks of a relationship that burnt out spectacularly in our youth, let alone piece together a life.
_But there we were at the Greenway Family Reunion in Guelph, and while Rob was off sourcing a beer from the ice bucket and rediscovering his long lost kin, his mom found herself in the awkward position of having to explain my relational significance.
_Into the silence, Dorothy, bless her heart, told a small cluster of the 50-some relatives gathered at Doug Greenway’s house, “This is my daughter-in-law, Tracey.” They must have wondered how they had missed a divorce and a wedding.
_But I felt a twinge of pleasure at hearing that old title resurrected so sweetly.
_Later, a cousin-in-law who was studying a piece of paper on which the bountiful limbs and branches of the family tree were spread, pointed out that Stephie and I were question marks, blanks to be filled in later by Rob.
_The cousin-in-law was indignant on our behalf.
_“Wife?” he inquired kindly. “Daughter?”
_For all intents and purposes we are, although the law doesn’t recognize us as such and there is the bothersome technical detail that while I am ‘officially separated’ from my husband we are not yet ‘divorced.’
_The ‘what am I’ question is one that continues to dog me. Girlfriend sounds juvenile and transient, partner gives people the impression that I’m with a woman, and I certainly don’t consider Rob to be my ‘better’ or even ‘other’ half.
_Wife is just easier and it gives me the credibility I think I deserve now that Rob and I share a home, a forever child and an uncertain and expensive future.
_“Sure,” I said to the cousin-in-law, whose name now escapes me. “Wife and daughter.”
_He wrote Tracey and Stephanie on Rob’s branch of the Greenway maple and it was official. I had a new family.
_There was no official ceremony. I didn’t have to sign my life away or make promises I might not be able to keep. I was just welcomed into the fold unconditionally.
_With so many Greenway relatives, it is unlikely I will remember all their names or send Christmas cards to each and every uncle, aunt, cousin, niece and nephew. But plans are already underway for next year’s reunion. And this time, Stephie and I won’t be blanks on a page.
_We will be family, bearing genealogical fruit on Rob’s branch of The Greenway tree.