Daddy?

Sometimes I wonder if we've lost him forever. If we're not his as much as he is still ours. It's the constant pictures and the never-ending updates from her that make me feel this way.

These were the words of my 17 year old sister talking about our father and his new-wife.

It's our first time to have a step-parent, and although we have known her for quite a while, it's still something to get accustomed to. She is a lovely lady with a kind heart and my father loves her. She hasn't tried to replace my mother, and thank-goodness for that, but has tried to foster her own relationships with us individually.
A noble idea, which I think has backfired since the introduction of my half-sister Nandi. All of 5 months old, she must be the most facebooked baby ever! Everyday I log onto facebook and am graced with a new pic of her, chewing on a toy, pushing the dog, sleeping or sometimes just staring suspiciously at the camera. There is a lot of Nandi that goes around on the internet. I am happy for my father and for my step-mother, but having spoken to my sister about how she's doing the above words lingered in my mind for too long. To an extent I agree with her. Although my sister spends every-other week with at my father's place she still feels like she hardly knows him anymore, she feels she is no longer his sweetheart, which breaks my heart. My father and I had an incredibly turbulent relationship from when I was about 14/15 till I was about 22/23, an understandable situation given my age and his wishes for my future. We could not see eye-to-eye but we found a way to make it work eventually. We had our few rituals and our conversations can now be frank and honest without the fear that we are somehow failing each other. But to be fair, the more time I spend around him, the more I feel there is no room for me and my sister in his life. He has a new wife with a new baby daughter, and although they all live in the house I grew up in since I was 8, they have renovated quite substantially and that doesn't feel familiar either. Thankfully I am now grown and autonomous enough that I can see these things as minor bumps in the road, but for my sister (who literally spends half her life with these people) it is harder to imagine how alone she must feel in that house. My father is wholly concerned with the baby, as he should be, but it seems everything about him has changed. The friends he invites over are no longer familiar faces but the facades of strabgers come into her life by way of the step-mom. The food has changed, the way the house works has changed and it can all be attributed to the fact that our father now has a new family. Given the gap between my two sister's I do not see them forging as strong a bond as my natural-sister and I have. She will be off to University or on a gap year next year and will be spending less & less time at home, even worse less time at a house which was her Home. I'm not sure how to deal with this, but the wisdom of my sister's words hurt, as I watched a man try to hold on to two parts of his life that he is failing to bring together. We are his old children, his old life. They are his current life, his now and his tomorrow. So I wonder we've lost him forever, or if this is just another moment in our tumultuous relationship that will serve to bring us all together in a stronger bond. Whatever it is, I need it to make my father & Sister's relationship better, because she is the reason I live and if it is lost for her it would break my heart forever and I would never be able to forgive him...