Blended family
The hard thing is rarely the end of the story.
A True Life Built is a living photo essay on starting over and building a truer life. It’s for anyone, at any age, who is finding the courage to begin again. It’s been quiet around here recently because I’ve been working on a larger project—more on that soon!—but I plan to publish more in the new year. Subscribe for free posts.
Last weekend, I sat at my dining room table in Brooklyn and played Bananagrams with four children: my two blond cousins from California on one side and the two dark-haired children of my partner on the other. Their fathers leaned over their shoulders to offer “help” and commentary (“Wait, who played L-U-S-T-Y??”) The kids shouted “peel!” as they grabbed the tiles, the ice between them slowly breaking.
The two girls, both twelve, were meeting for the first time. They both love Lululemon bags (pink), the Sephora annual sale (squeal!), and delicate opal necklaces from Kendra Scott. They both roll their eyes constantly at their brothers. They are hideously embarrassed when their fathers try to use their slang (“cringe”), wear off-brand clothes (“dupes”), or dance in public (“dad stooooooooooooooop”).
Here’s one more thing they have in common: neither one was in my life four years ago. When I left my marriage in 2020, I thought I had closed the door to children of my own. Yet here I was, at a table full of bright and beautiful young people who I was slowly getting to know and growing to love. It felt, for the first time, like a blended family.
When I lived in Nairobi, my sister-in-law and her daughter came over on Sunday afternoons. My niece was just learning to talk. I made her cheese toast with the crusts cut off and we chased the bug-eyed dog around the garden. We picked strawberries, made mud pies, and twirled until we fell down laughing on the grass. She loved to sit in my vegetable beds under a tower of tomatoes and fill my watering can (“wat-can”) with gravel. When she wanted to be picked up, she’d lift her little arms and say “carry you?” and in those moments I hoped nobody ever corrected her.
I still tear up, thinking about it. She won’t remember any of this. She won’t remember me at all.
When you end a marriage, you lose all the people who go with it. I still text my sister-in-law on my niece’s birthday. “We think of you often,” she replies, and I believe her. But her loyalty is to her brother and, in the four years since I left, I’ve not seen a single photo of my niece. In my mind, she will always be two.
I thought I had a lifetime to watch her grow, and I grieved her loss like a death. “We are shaped by earliest years,” my therapist said to console me. “Even if she doesn’t remember you, she carries those moments with her. You never know what might happen in the future. Children have a way of coming back around.”
I returned to Brooklyn during my divorce and flew to California to visit my cousins. I hadn’t seen them for four years, too involved in my husband’s family to invest in my own. Suddenly, Avery was eight, a string bean in black leggings who carried graphic novels around under her arm. She barely remembered my last visit, yet the minute I stepped out of the car, she slipped her little hand in mine and started telling me about her favorite books. I adored her instantly.
In the past four years, we’ve been to France and North Carolina and Oklahoma and New York. When we’re together, we ride carousels and bake pies and do puzzles and play Bananagrams. We’re always on the same team, Avery snuggled at my side as we flip the tiles and sort them into words. One Christmas, as I cleaned up after our final game, I found one last message spelled out in tiles: L-I-Z + A-V-E-R-Y. I smiled and slipped the A into my pocket. I keep it to remind me that you never really know how things will turn out.
Perhaps you’ve heard this parable: A father and son owned a spectacular horse, and all the neighbors told them how lucky they were. But the father just replied, “Who knows what is good or bad?” Then the son fell off the spirited horse and broke his leg. When the neighbors came by to console him, again the father said, “Who knows what is good or bad?”
It goes on like this. Next, the young men of the village are drafted into war and the neighbor’s son is spared due to his leg. But this time the neighbors have learned something: It’s impossible to know in the moment what is truly good or bad. A loss, even a grave one, is rarely the end of the story.
My partner and I love to (mis)use the slang we learn from his kids. “That’s cap,” he says when I finish the last bite of his banana pudding. “Sounds like a you problem,” I say when he wears sandals in winter and then complains that his feet are cold. Then we laugh and laugh while the kids pull their hoodies over their heads and shrink away from us on the sidewalk.
I remember how much my own father enjoyed this game. In my middle school era in the early 90s, the hit song was Whoomp There It Is. He used to lift his arms over his head and yell the chorus in public where OMG people might see me. “Am I doing it right?” he’d ask while I melted into the pavement. I still cringe, thinking about it.
Back then, I had no idea how much fun it is to embarrass teenagers—or that I’d ever have the chance to find out. But here’s the thing: when you start a relationship, you gain all the people who go with it. In this case, two sweet and hilarious teenagers who will still play ping pong with us and pile on the couch to watch Elf and help me make pumpkin spice donuts. Sometimes they’ll even show us the latest TikTok dances (if we swear never, ever to repeat them). If I’m lucky, I’ll have a lifetime to watch them grow.
It’s tempting, in these moments, to tell a story about happy endings. But I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason. Loss isn’t some kind of toll we pay to get to the other side. It simply is—and in the moment the pain is all-consuming. Four years ago, I had just been bucked off a horse and every bone in my body was broken. Deep in my grief, I could never have imagined the recent scene at my dining room table.
Instead, I believe that life unfolds in strange and beautiful ways that are impossible to predict, and that we make our own meaning by where we draw the end of the story. Many years from now, my Nairobi niece will also be a bright and beautiful teenager. Maybe she’ll visit New York one day and her mother will tell her about a woman who used to carry her around the garden. Maybe we’ll sit down at my dining room table and play a game of Bananagrams.
One of the unexpected joys of starting over has been hearing from others on similar journeys. If something resonates with you, I’d love for you to leave a comment, drop me an email or share a post with a friend!
Liz is a writer and photographer based in Brooklyn. lizmstudio.com.
Previous essays:
Women without children
Who am I to children who are not mine? I don’t have to bring a child into the world to love the ones that are already here.
The child I never had
The choice to have a child cannot be unmade, and at a certain age you lose the chance to choose at all.
I'll be the fourth to say it again: this was beautiful. Welcome back, Liz!
Agree with everyone, so beautiful :) :) :) :)