He married one of her closest friends, who had lost her own husband to Lou Gehrig’s disease some six years before. The other day, I went to the store to buy my step-mother a card, and step-moms were buried all the way in the back, like some sad off-shoot out of a Cinderella story.  Advertising doesn’t go out of the way to encourage us to recognize our step-moms, and I for one, feel they are given a bad reputation.  

Oh, it took me a while to get used to the notion of Helen.  My father couldn’t stand being so utterly alone, he had lost his wife and his mother within three months of each other. It was heartbreaking watching him cry whenever he put mustard on his hot dog and tears started rolling down his face.  But it was all too soon for me. In fact, I never even went to my father’s wedding.  

I told my then boss, I needed to take off for my dad’s nuptials. In fact, I headed to Stowe to play golf. Instead of heading home to Albany for their “special day,”  I whacked balls off to heaven.  I reluctantly called my dad, on his wedding day and said, “Hello.”  That was all that I could muster.  

He asked me where I was and I said, “Vermont,” to which he replied with a sort of laugh, “Oh, my, that’s where we’re heading for our honeymoon.”  

In my family there are five children, and Helen has five kids too.  I think we were all territorial about how much of her family remainders were in their new home, in comparison to what remained of the memories that once brought my father alive with my mother.  But over the years, you stop counting how many pictures one side has up and the other doesn’t and you do become this great extended family, if you can let it become that way.  

Some of my “steps” are my closest friends, as they were when we were once young long ago, so innocent frolicking before our parents who were then best friends.  Who could have imagined the future and its intertwining fate?  

Helen with the family

This is all about Mother’s Day come Sunday, but it’s also for step-mothers too. I have a beautiful and lovely one.

Helen has been there for me when I had a hysterectomy, giving me ice chips when I came out of recovery, and she was there for all the births of my nieces and nephews, the ones my mother never got to know, and pick up and nestle under her arms.  

Helen has never once tried to take our mother’s place.  She even sent me a Mother’s Day card on behalf of my dog. She is one of my closest confidantes, if I care to open up to her.   

I miss you Mom.  That bond is ours forever.  To this day, the echoes of your silent voice make the world that much more hollow.  But, Happy Mother’s Day to you Helen.  I think that extra twinkle in the sky on Sunday night will be my mother, approving from high above in the deep, dark blue beyond.  

My mother

Sue Carswell is a reporter/researcher for "Vanity Fair."   She is the author of "Paying For Glory," and "Faded Pictures From My Backyard." Carswell is a former senior producer at "Good Morning America," former executive and senior editor at Random House Inc. and Simon & Schuster.  She was a contributing launch editor for "O, The Oprah Magazine."  She is a contributor for Wowowow.com.  She lives in Manhattan where she is also a ghostwriter and speechwriter.