Who's On First?

sister, step sister, niece

This past weekend I attended my ex-step sister's second wedding. I call her my ex-step sister because, technically, we are no longer related. When we were children, my father married her mother. Voila, we were a blended family. When we grew up, her mother and my father divorced. End of family. On paper anyway. Legal definitions of marriage and family may not recognize us as family, but legal definitions do not include the woven histories of our lives together: The family dinners and vacations, the sibling rivalries, the family jokes, the grieving when our parents divorced, the joy when we married and had our own children. Oh, we're still family alright.

My parents have each been married three times. In addition to my mother, my father, and my sister, I have had two step mothers, two step fathers, and thirteen step siblings. People tend to give me a blank stare when I try to explain the complex web of my family. 

When I was ten and my sister was six, our mother married Michael. He had three daughters. That same year, my father married Linda. She had two sons and a daughter. These are the people I grew up with: The step father who taught me about photography, played the guitar and mandolin, and introduced me to curry dishes and paella. The step mother who took me to get my ears pierced, helped me throw a party with boys in junior high, and was always willing to lend an ear. And six step siblings. We had dinner with one set on Wednesday nights, and the other set on Thursday nights. On Friday nights my three step sisters spent the night at our house. And on Saturday nights my sister and I spent the night at our dad's house with the two step brothers and the other step sister. We divided up holidays and had two summer vacations every year. It was a complicated, rich, sometimes painful childhood.

Years passed. A lot has changed. My mother is married to Owen now. My father is married to Nelda. And my step sister just married a second time (I think this one's a keeper.) At the wedding, Nelda (my dad's current wife) and Linda (his 2nd) sat together drinking wine and talking. My sister and I joked with my dad that we should call our mom to come join them so all of his wives could share a glass of wine and a story or two. Then we offered to get my dad another drink! He just laughed. And he pointed out something that made me love my crazy, complicated family more. He said, we may have many layers in our family, but we all get along pretty well. And you know what? He's right. We've had our share of anger, heartbreak and sadness, but we can all come together to celebrate each other's lives. AND, if the warm feelings we shared at this most recent wedding are any indicator, we all still have faith in love.

me, step brother, sister