DEAR ABBY: I just finished reading the letter from the mother whose son had died. She wrote that the mourners who attended the funeral ignored the grief and loss felt by her husband, her son's stepfather. It is sad when stepfamily members are tossed aside, especially in times of grief.
My ex-husband raised my two daughters (his stepdaughters) from the ages of 1 and 3 to the ages of 17 and 18. We were divorced in 1987, but the girls kept a father/daughter relationship with their stepfather until his death in 1996. They both had married and had children, and their stepfather was considered a father-in-law and grandfather by all concerned.
When he died, my daughters were not informed of his death, were excluded from his funeral, and his obituary made no mention of them -- although it did mention his current wife's son and grandson (the son was an adult and on his own when they married, and my ex had no part in raising her son).
My daughters had always professed that their biological father was their father, but their stepfather was "Daddy." I cannot understand how someone can be so heartless as to have done this to anyone, let alone my daughters. They were not given the opportunity to say goodbye to their daddy. People should consider the impact of their actions on the innocent parties involved in a family crisis. -- MILLIE IN SPANAWAY, WASH.
DEAR MILLIE: Since I don't know the grieving widow, I don't know whether the omission was deliberate -- an indication of how threatened she was by her husband's closeness to his stepdaughters -- or the fact that she was so devastated by her own grief that she couldn't think beyond it to the pain that was felt by others. Please give her the benefit of the doubt.