Story Weekend: "Born out of Wedlock"
Okay, it’s a weird topic for Story Weekend, but I bet everybody has some kind of story inspired by those four words. I look forward to hearing yours.
This topic is inspired by the fact that my e-short story, The First Lie, will be available Tuesday (99¢ in the US and 99p in the UK), and it has a lot to do with a birth out of wedlock. The First Lie introduces the characters from my upcoming September release Necessary Lies (and both the story and the book are available right now for preorder. Just sayin’!)
By the way, this is our ninetieth Story Weekend! We’re going to have to find a way to celebrate when we hit one hundred!
If you’re new to Story Weekend, here’s how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you interpret it. Thanks to all of you who’ve been contributing. As always, there are a few “rules”:
▪ The story must be true
▪ Try to keep it under 100 words. Embrace the challenge! That’s about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it’s too long. I know how tough it is to “write tight” but I hope you’ll accept this as a challenge. Happy writing!
My daughter was born out of wedlock. I was not married to her father and he left me while I was pregnant. He had been divorced and had a 3 year old daughter when we met. After he left me he went back to his ex-wife, remarried her and had a son. They lived in the same town as us but he never told his family about our daughter. I never lied to my daughter so she knew who he was and that she had a half-sister and half-brother. About 3 or 4 years ago when she was about 22 years old she sent them both a message (thru facebook) telling them who she was. To try to make this story a little shorter, her father lied through his teeth when confronted by them. They met with my daughter, had a sibling DNA test done (it showed they were definitely siblings) and they have welcomed her into their life. Their father and his “wife” want nothing to do with my daughter (so sad) but the sister and brother are good friends with her. My daughter has a 3 year old nephew that is also part of her life. I’m so happy that her half-siblings have been so mature and accepting of her but so sad that her father still will not be part of her life.
Thanks for sharing that story, Carol. How wonderful that your daughter has her siblings and that you can embrace that part of her family. It’s her father’s loss.
That is a poignant and lovely story. I had a story of my own, but it seems pathetic and lame compared to this one. Kudos to Carol, her daughter, and her daughter’s siblings. I wish them all the best.
No such thing as a pathetic story on Story Weekend, Bernie!
Born out of wedlock, a term that I’ve not thought of in years. I don’t have a story that I want to share, but I’ve heard the song, “Love Child” by Diana Ross and The Supremes in my head all day!
Oh no, Deb. Thanks a lot!
My wonderful granddaughter was born out of wedlock to my daughter who was a senior in high school at the time. This is the story of how my daughter told me she was pregnant. I regularly visit and spend time at the neighborhood library. One afternoon I was there and my daughter texted me and asked where I was. I told her and she showed up there within a few minutes. That day I had a stack of cookbooks I was looking over and my daughter seated herself across the table from me. She reached into her purse and pulled out a piece of paper, placed it face down and slid it across the table to me. She had an unusual look on her face. I slowly picked up the paper to look at it. It was an ultrasound of a baby with the date of that day and my daughter’s name on it. I looked up at her and she had a look of fear on her face. The fact that we were in a library where one can only whisper and the fact that she chose this place to tell me where I can’t bombard her immediately with questions was truly an intervention from God. I had the time to tame my initial thoughts, hold my ready-to-speak tongue and be rational and civil when we did communicate immediately after our departure from the library.
What a brilliant move on your daughter’s part.
I was born in the fifties to a single mother of just 18, a disgrace on the family back then. She was put in a mother and baby home so that I could be adopted, but my mother refused to give me up and eventually my grandmother agreed that my mother could go home and take me with her. Maybe grandma remembered that she had come into the world the same way back in 1908, her mother unmarried, her father Samuel Franklin Cody, the American Aviator and Wild West Showman, who had come to England and made the first ever flight by an American, when she was three months old. He died when one of his flying machines crashed in September 1913.. I will be going to the 100 year commemoration at Farnborough to see them erect a statue in his memory, in September.
OMG, Sue, what an unbelievable story!
This is more a story of conceived out of wedlock. My father would be 101 today if he were living and was conceived out of wedlock. When I was a young teenager, my grandparents celebrated their 50th anniversary. (Another family story about an introvert NOT showing up for his own party!). It dawned on me that week that my father was born seven months after their wedding. In my young innocence there was shock and horror! My grandparents had sex? Before they were married? Of course, a few years later it seemed more understandable to me.
Lol! I think a lot of us had those awakenings.
Sorry I know this is an old post but I had to say that I’m glad that we’ve all come along way in the last 100 years in reguards to this topic. I too have 3 children all born out of wedlock to the same man we’ve been together for almost 10 years now. My oldest is 7, 3, and my baby (boy) is 6 months. I do want to marry him but in the past 8 years I’ve had a lot of family members & close friends planning weddings and instead of taking away from their “Day” I decided to wait patently. It just so happens that 2 more kids came in the mean time. I have to say I do have a few reservations about it though he is 12 years older then me and has been married twice before to 2 women named Amy and both marriages last less then 3 years total combined.