When my stepson was about three, he looked up at me with wide, curious eyes and said, “I love you.” I smiled and answered, “I love you too.” But then he added, with a softness I’ll never forget, “No… I mean I love you like you’re mine.”
He didn’t understand labels—step, biological, half. He only understood love. And in that moment, something gentle opened inside me.
I had entered his life carefully, afraid of taking a place that wasn’t mine. But children see what adults overthink. They feel effort, kindness, and consistency, and they respond with honesty that melts fears you didn’t even know you carried.
As the years passed, our bond grew through ordinary moments: tying shoes, reading bedtime stories, packing lunches he pretended to hate. I showed up for every soccer game, even in the rain, and listened to every long video-game explanation no matter how confusing.
What he never realized was how deeply he changed me. He gave me patience, joy, and a sense of purpose I hadn’t known before.
When he was seven, he asked if loving me meant he was “forgetting” his mother. I knelt beside him and told him love doesn’t replace — it expands. His mother would always be part of him. I was just another safe place for his heart to rest.
Now he’s eleven, taller, funnier, and pretending he’s too cool for hugs — until nighttime proves otherwise. And sometimes he still looks at me with that same sincerity and says, “I’m glad you’re here.”
And every time, I’m reminded: love isn’t defined by biology. It’s defined by showing up.
