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Wide and Tall 3 by Rachel Jefferies
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Mixed Media M3 Add-On May 2020 By LBW (elements and papers)
This is the right hand side of the two-page spread documenting our 2003.
The left side is here. It was a trying time in our life with lots of unknowns and no guarantees. In a nutshell, my husband has two boys from previous marriage and we wanted them to be a part of our life as much as possible. Many people told us it was not going to work, but little did we - and they - know that less then a year after our wedding they would actually end up moving with us with the other side of the world and visiting their mom for holidays only.
The journaling reads:
Their parents' separation and the subsequent divorce brought shock and confusion to Josef and Honza, 13 and 10 at the time, and turned their world upside down. Josef did his best to spend as much time with them as possible and make sure they knew they mattered like nothing else.
The three of them would go to water parks - Serena in Finland and Babylon in Liberec - and spend evenings playing football and Need for Speed on PlayStation (the very first one). Most of the photos from those days were taken by the boys and are a testament to the wonderful children that they were - two boys goofing around with the camera taking the over-zoomed pics of their dad just for fun. There's one of Josef driving in a shower cap because he had lost the car tournament the night before, the one of him pretending to dive in for the ball (below) and a really serious one as he's trying to score (right). There are a couple of snapshots done by me in the car while the photos on the opposite page were taken by Josef during those all-boys' trips.
Making the boys a part of our life was our priority number one from the start. Many people close to us insisted - and passionately too - it was not going to work.
But where there's will there is a way, so we just ignored all the well-wishers and did what we thought was right. All the four of us. We accepted and accommodated, built up tolerance and worked hard on making this work. Josef, as the parent, did most of the heavy lifting, I focused on not being the evil stepmother and the boys did their best to enjoy the time spent with their dad rather than dwell on their mom not being there. And the secret to our success...
