This summer marks two years on the loss of my step dad. This weekend marks the 2 year of finding out about his cancer- we went to the cemetery with flowers and tears this weekend, and the hole that he left behind is still there and amazingly how raw the emotions still are.

I wanted to share, since I am from a blended family here is a touch of my background:

Parents divorced when I was 7, 2 siblings and I'm the only girl sandwiched in the middle.

Dad remarried, the SM is now gone and has been for many many years. Though her treatment of us kids stuck with us for a VERY long time. I have tried not to be like her.
Mom remarried a year or so after dad, SF was a serious workaholic. He was very hands off and had nothing to really do with any of us kids- including his own (2- boy and girl), so he wasn't being biased!

33 years after my mom and sf married, and 2 years after he has passed, "his" kids email "her" kids, we are all aunts and uncles and cousins - we aren't as close as "natural siblings" but we feel the pain and the joy for each others lives. We have reached out much more after he passed away, as we realized that the "glue" to our family are our parents. And to let the other set go, would be to let years of our lives go.

However, my step brother has a tremendous relationship with my mother. he loves her dearly and views her as his mother. He has told me that she is the reason he is who he is- she loved him and listened and spent time with him. His mother did and still does the PAS thing in a huge way- he however through my mom has learned to love both his natural parents for who they are- and not like what they did/do but seperate the actions and the parent.

My step dad's love was unconditional- but we just never knew it. We didn't know it (his "sk" that is) until we flew, and crashed into the safety net he held out. He picked us up and with my mom as well helped to teach us again to fly.

My flight took me down the aisle, and my crash brought me home with a 9 month old baby- I will never forget the words "SF says when you are ready to call your marriage done, he says to bring your baby home and live with us rent free, and go back to school, we will babysit while you work and go to school. I wanted to cry. I will always remember that feeling of that safety net.

So to all of you who post-SF and SM's alike- there is hope for a blended family I am living proof that it happens. It might not happen when you hope or how you hope, but it happens.