Today I read about family in my 550 class. Family is interesting to me since I have so much of it. I have two biological sons (17 & 21), three stepdaughters (19, 24 & 29). My husband and I have been married for almost 10 years and together for 14. Our oldest son, Tim, died tragically 4 years ago from alcohol poisoning. He was 22. I had a daughter pass away the day she was born in 1992. This is my nuclear family. We are blended and happy about it. It took my husband's two eldest daughters years to even talk to me, but now I get Mother's Day cards that say "I love you". My sons call my husband when they need help instead of their fathers.
The extended parts of my family have grown substantially. There is my mother, whom I work with, my maternal grandparents, my maternal great grandmother, aunt and uncle, cousins, second cousins, great aunts and uncles, my brother and his wife, niece and nephew, and my husband's sister are all still living and we make contact at least once a year face-to-face or more often on Facebook. Then there are ex-relatives. My sons' relatives and fathers whom I still contact once in a while, if only to exchange Christmas and birthday lists with are still near. We have contact with my husband's first wife's family as well. There are weddings, funerals, and family get togethers that we attend with our children. Now, my eldest daughter is married and she has a whole new family too. At the gym the other day, her new mother-in-law asked me if we wanted to make a trip to Mexico with them and the kids, saying "it would be great!" It sounded horrifying to me as we did the kid's wedding there with everybody and I hated almost every minute of it except the wedding and reception.
On my paternal side, everyone has passed away except for greatly extended family. My grandfather passed first at 81, then my grandmother at 80, my father at 56, and my uncle at 61. On that side of the family, I feel like an orphan. My father had no other siblings, and of my grandparent's siblings, only one is alive and she has Alzheimer. There are various cousins around, but I have not heard or seen any of them in over 15 years.
Back to marriage and society's "norms". I have not lived in society's norm since before I got married the first time. I got married at 16, and I wasn't even pregnant yet. I had my son at 17, got divorced and became a single mother. My second marriage lasted five years and I had my second son. I left that husband for my third. My current husband and I lived together with a blending of our children for four years before we decided to get married. (This was not his second marriage either.) At least this time I know I made the right decision and I am secure in my life as I never was before.
It is true that the only way you become family is to be born into it, married into it, or adopted into it. The only way out is die.
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