In the opening lines of The Great Gatsby, narrator Nick Carraway says, “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’” Nick heeds this wise counsel, but until I got knocked in the dirt, metaphorically speaking, I’d forgotten it. So much of my highbrow morality wasn’t the product of amazing virtue or Christian character, but divine providence. I was holding my sons’ birth mother accountable for not being me, for not making the choices I’d been taught were right. But how could she have known without someone to guide her, to help her get ready for adulthood the way my parents had done for me?
As I sat in a dark closet in a puddle of self-pity, an even more surprising truth finally dawned on me. My anger had really been some pathetic attempt to erect a wall, a flimsy paper privacy screen between me and the fact that, with a few changes to our respective situations, she and I weren’t so different. And with that realization, my anger evaporated, and it became impossible for me to hate her any longer.
Am I still exasperated at times? Certainly. Is she the source of my frustration? Often, without a doubt. But I’ve crossed the battle line to stand with her, this woman I may never meet but who gave me two of the greatest joys of my life. We’re still walking that minefield, but we’re making progress. And thankfully a bomb in my heart—perhaps one of many—has been disarmed for good.
