We’re thrilled to welcome our newest Getting Real With, Elizabeth Sanchez.
The cliché goes that “eyes are windows to the soul” and the state in Mexico that my husband is from is known for just that: the people have amazing eyes. My husband’s eyes definitely mesmerized me, and we started dating a month after we met.
About a week later, my then-boyfriend told me he had something very serious to talk about. He said there was a girl who just had a baby and she claimed it was his child. He didn’t believe her, but had never seen the baby because the mother said she wouldn’t do a paternity test out of spite for him not believing it was his child.
Well, it turns out that in Illinois, if you want state-aid, you need to give information for the father of your child, he must be served with papers and go to court to determine (and then accept) paternity so he can pay child support. When my then-boyfriend was served, he freaked out, but he also became curious.
Around that time, the mother lived three houses down from my husband and his aunt and uncle, whom he was living with at the time. The rumor mill was churning non-stop and they had heard that the baby was the spitting image of my husband. His uncle was friends with the mother and one day they ran into each other when he was coming home. He came in that day saying he had another nephew because there was no doubt that kid was a Sanchez.
Still freaked out but now equally curious, my husband decided he couldn’t wait two more months to go to court. He wanted to see the baby. Since he and the mother weren’t on speaking terms, his uncle went over to ask her if the baby could come to his house. My husband invited me for moral support, and probably also to see my reaction.
Everyone that was there, his aunt, two cousins, himself and me, were almost exploding with anticipation. When his uncle walked in, we set the car seat down in the middle of the room and stared at it, with no one really daring to take off the big blanket that kept the cold December wind off the face of this innocent child we all had. Finally, someone did. And as the blanket slid off the car seat, it was as if someone took a time-machine gun, turned it back to age 3 months and shot it right at my husband.
Those eyes.
They were the same size and shape, with the same dark, long eyelashes that framed the almond-shaped brown eyes that I turned to look at in awe. No one could move. We stood there transfixed, staring back and forth between my husband and this mini-me he was meeting for the first time.
Eddy just started back at us. He won us over with an innocent grin that is still his trademark, six years later. Since no one could move, I went over and picked him up, earning the honor of being the first one of the family to hold the baby that would one day become my stepson.
After that, the paternity test was a formality, mainly for the judicial system. There was no doubt that this was his child. He was worth fighting with the mother for visitation rights and going to mediation to learn how to get along. He was worth turning his back on all the rumors started by people who didn’t understand how much he loved his son. He is worth being patient, painfully patient, when his mother succumbs to the voices in her ear telling her she shouldn’t get along with us.
If I refer to him as “my stepson” and “my husband’s son,” it’s only out of respect for the woman who gave birth to him and who takes on the world to make sure he has everything he needs. I am so grateful that she allows me to be a part of her son’s life, but I also know that she does so because she knows that in my heart, he’s no different from the two children I gave birth to. When he doesn’t come home for a weekend, it throws off our balance. Our entire family beings to wander around like we’re missing a piece of ourselves. The piece that makes us whole.
And if anyone needs any proof that the children are siblings, not half-siblings or step-siblings, just look at their eyes.
