Many Hearts, One Family

About once or twice a year, as obligation sees fit, I end up at a family function in Idaho. I try to keep my stays there as short as humanly possible. I know for a lot of people, Idaho is the best place in the world to live, but I look at it as a place where I did my mandatory sentence, and return only when necessary. This weekend was one of those necessary trips, because my stepdad met a special lady and decided to get married.

Pop quiz for those folks out there from “non-traditional” families, what the hell do you call a stepparent’s spouse? Is she my step-stepmother? Some snotty, rich kid who resides in the Los Angeles suburbs has to know the answer to this, as well as the costs for various plastic surgery procedures. Anyways, my stepdad couldn’t have done better, because this lady is a gem. Prior to the wedding I had talked to her on the phone once, so why the high opinion? I was blessed with my maternal grandfather’s gift of accurately reading people within the first five seconds of talking to them. I am rarely ever wrong, and in cases where I am, it is usually with someone I happened to be dating, so thankfully, I don’t run into that anymore.

My step-stepmother and my stepdad hit it off right away over a series of interesting coincidences: they both were widowed by spouses who died of brain tumors, they both have adult sons who are mentally disabled, they both have many friends in common, yet had never remembered meeting each other in the past, and they both have four kids. Basically, they were perfect for each other, and I could tell from various conversations that my stepdad wanted me at his wedding.

Jeff, Rachael and I did the big roadtrip thanks to disgusting airfares, and ended up checking into the hotel with just enough time to get dressed in our fancy wedding attire and head to the church. By the way, my stepdad, his family, my step-stepmother and her family are all good Christians, so there was no dancing the Horah that night. Within ten minutes, I met my step-stepmother and my three new stepsisters, two of which are twins and thankfully, not identical. By the end of Friday night, I had a completely new family.

I say this quite casually, because I’ve always taken things in stride, and I’ve been in enough ultra-weird situations that it just seems to be the way my life goes. In fact, I start getting bored and worried if it seems like too much time has elapsed between bizarre experiences. My younger brother, the one with the traumatic brain injury, didn’t take it so easy. He loves his new stepmom, but he couldn’t stop thinking of our mom who had passed just a couple of years prior. I kept my arm around him the whole time, and by the end of the evening, he was okay with everything.

I thought about my mother a couple of times that night, but not in a sorrow-filled way. She was kind of a jealous, control freak, so I couldn’t help smiling every time I thought about how she would have absolutely lost it at the thought of her beloved husband sharing company with someone else. I could just see my mother screaming at us calling us all traitors, because we accept this new person, let alone get along with her and welcome her with open arms. I know that sounds really bad, but if you knew my mom, it’s pretty damn accurate.

Oddly enough, it was my mother that taught me that blood doesn’t make a family. She dragged me and my siblings away from our blood relatives at an early age and kept us from them purposefully, while at the same time teaching us that you make your own family from those non-relatives who end up playing an enormous role in your life. I would later find out that making your own family is a very punk way of doing things, since I have yet to meet a punk who has confined themselves strictly to their blood relatives. Most will tell you about a brother, sister, uncle, parent, etc. who is a major force in their life, but there isn’t one drop of common blood between them.

At this point, I’m excited at the prospect of having a new family, because I already know everything about my existing family members, so having new ones to probe with uncomfortable questions they have to answer, because we are family now will be interesting. My step-stepmom is a lovely lady, her oldest daughter was a little stand-offish, but from what I’m told she was very close with her father, who passed away right before she went off to college, so the wedding had to be difficult for her. The twins are sophomores in college, and although we didn’t get a chance to talk much, I think it will be fun getting to know them. As for me, I’ve got my Rachael, the ultimate ice-breaker, and we will need her, because Thanksgiving is coming up soon, and this year, it’s going to be a big one!