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| My stepfather |
Both of my parents have passed away, my mother 25 years ago this coming January and my father this past May. So the only living parents I have now are my stepparents.
When I scheduled the trip for the reunion, I was also intending to visit my father and stepmother. After my father's death, however, my stepmother has been moved to Texas, where she now lives with her son and daughter-in-law, because she really couldn't live on her own anymore. So I didn't get to see her, unfortunately.
My stepmother's son, of course, is my stepbrother. He has two sisters, who are my stepsisters.
My stepfather has two sons from his first marriage, so I have two more stepbrothers. (I did get to see both of them on my trip.)
I have a full brother and full sister from my parents' marriage.
I also have a half-sister, about whom I have written several times, from my father's first marriage.
I guess I had a stepgrandmother growing up, because my grandfather was on his third wife before I was even born.
I even have a living stepgrandmother, because my stepfather's mother is still alive and kicking (in fact, she turns 94 this December!).
And as if that weren't enough to keep track of, my brother used to ask people this question, just to see their reactions:
"When is my sister's sister not my sister?"
And that happens when your half-sister's mother remarries and has a daughter with her second husband. So my half-sister's half-sister is not biologically related to me and therefore not my sister.
(They could have used a variation of that line on NCIS: When is my brother's brother not my brother? Ziva's half-brother, Ari, had a half-brother, Sergei, from his mother's second marriage. Sergei was not related by blood to Ziva at all. And so we have art imitating life.)
I guess that's why I had to become a genealogist — just so someone in the family could keep track of all this.
