Blended Families

I was familiar with blended families long before there was a name for it. Not how you might think, though. My parents are married, I have no step or half siblings.

However, Both sets of my grand parents are divorced. That gives me 4 sets of grandparents in all. My father's parents divorced when he was 4. My mother's parents divorced when she was 16. I'm not even exactly sure how many siblings my father has-I met his mother maybe once before she died. She didn't even come to my parents wedding. I do know I'm her oldest grandchild. One of my uncles I thought was my father's step brother is actually his half-brother. I just never picked up on it...it's so many of them I can't keep track.

My mother's family is a little more interesting. My mother has 5 step brothers and a half sister who is 6 weeks older than me. She also has a whole brother, or a brother that she has the same mother and father with. Half, Step, all these terms are confusing. So, I have an aunt who is my age. Boy you know that was fun growing up. She looks just like my mom, too.

My mother is closest to her youngest step brother, and sometimes she calls him her brother.

My mother's stepfather died in May after battling alzheimer's (or however you spell it) This man thought I hung the moon and spoiled me accordingly.

My mother's stepmother died in July. She helped her step brothers look after her and did way more then they did for their own mother. Not necessarily because she was soooo close to this woman. She did it out of love for her own father, helping him take care of his wife.

And she did they same thing for her mother, helping her take care of her husband.

I think its soo ironic that both of her step parents died within months of each other.

My mother's brother (her whole brother) died in July 2007. This leaves only her to care for and look after her mother, who is 79 and her father, who is 87. Of course it would be easier on her if they were still married and lived in the same house. (They've been divorced since 1972.)

I wonder if parents think about that when they divorce. Not that they should stay together because of that. But my mother is spread so thin looking after both of her parents with their separate homes, separate bank accounts, separate everything. I guess this is neither here nor there, and water under the bridge but I just think about how easy it would be if they were together.