Trevor not just a superhero: A lesson in going the extra mile

I don’t know what happened to Natalie’s husband but she was separated with one seven year old son, Mark, when she met Trevor. Trevor was a mechanic with four daughters to rear on his own after his wife died following a long battle with depression.

So when I met them they were a blended family – Natalie got on well with Trevor’s girls and although they went through some tough teenage years, the family was holding together. Not so Mark – he felt he was the outsider in a family of girls, he missed his dad and didn’t get on well with Trevor who he saw as stealing Natalie, his mum – and everything suggested that the discord between the two was mutual.

But Natalie was adamant in demanding that Trevor get a better relationship going with Mark or they couldn’t marry. So Trevor and Mark and I worked on sharing some home truths, about feeling rejected, about loss of a loved one, about lack of respect and Trevor agreed to put in some long and hard yards to try and get a good relationship going with Mark as he really wanted to marry Natalie.

Putting in hard yards in this case meant Mark calling on his own dad, a retired mechanic, to come back into the shop and help out two afternoons a week and Saturday morning so Trevor could take Mark to his much loved soccer practice and to the Saturday game. Trevor got on well with the coach and became the half time orange supplier and took his turn washing the shirts. In time the genuine commitment of Trevor to Mark paid off and they became much better friends.

But Mark still didn’t want this wedding thing to happen, said he wouldn’t be going. Trevor now had a dilemma, Natalie was keen, the girls were keen but the whole thing soured over Mark. I don’t know how and when he did it but, on their way home from soccer training, Trevor apparently stopped the car and asked Mark what he could do to make this wedding thing work. They agreed and to this day I don’t know whether Mark was testing Trevor or making him do penance but the next time I saw them was after the wedding and they brought along some photos. Honest to God, there was Mark in a Superman suit and Trevor… dressed in a Superman suit too!

Natalie must have swallowed a lot of pride to marry that Superman! This all happened a few years ago and Mark is now an apprentice mechanic in Trevor’s garage and they get on well – when I mention the cape caper, they both just look sheepishly away and smile.

Sometimes in the course of my life I think I’ve made sacrifices for my kids but Mark taught me a huge lesson in sacrificial love! Trevor, you’re now in my Hall of Fame, not just as a humble hero but a superhero!!