About Mine

I was born eight months after my parents married.

My mom was the youngest of five girls, from a well-established family. When her dad died she became the Golden Child, and her sense of self-importance led her to marry her high school sweetheart; an illiterate middle school dropout with a raging alcohol problem and anger issues.

Dad was the youngest of three Polish Catholic boys. The clan on Dad’s side consists of a bunch of loveable sausage-eating, heavy-drinking loudmouths who were prone to scratch whatever itched no mind to you.

Mom and Dad had two kids and a zillion restraining orders. The police stopped coming to her rescue because Dad would tear them up.
He was the life of the party. He doesn’t drink any more, but he’s still one of the most enjoyable people you could meet, if he ever left his house.

The folks decided to split permanently after a stabbing (her → him) in ’71.
They fought bitterly for custody. They dragged us through the ordeal. Both remarried.
My dad married an awesome Norsk woman with downhome values and a Hallmark heart.
Mom married the white trash hillbilly she’d been seeing on the sly. They bribed some social workers and were awarded custody in 1974.
He had two kids. Eventually he kidnapped them from their mom, who’d grown too weary to fuss about it.
I got half-brothers from each parent.

We grew up like any blended family. Dad picked us up for every single visitation. We enjoyed going to his place for Sunday afternoons, alternate weekends, and six weeks of our summer vacation.

During my teen years I concentrated on drinking and smalltime drug use. I stopped going to Dad’s with any regularity, but we maintained our relationship.
At nineteen I had a baby.
At twenty-one I started dating my [now] husband. He was 17. He assumed the role of Dad to my Girl, and has fulfilled that responsibility laudably.

We all grew up, some of us married, divorced. Some kids were born.
Several branches of the family tree fell off.

My mom died in '04. She had lung cancer. After her passing the fam went totally kaput. There was no upheaval or drama, just overwhelming apathy. Distance helps a lot.
The stepdad calls infrequently, when he's had too much Kessler's and vicodin.

Half-bro 2 is blind. He and stepbrother disappeared from the radar. Stepsister died in April. She'd been estranged from everyone for 17 years. A foreclosure forced her to move in with the stepdad. She was in poor health and addicted to prescription painkillers. She died of an overdose at his house.
Brother Number One [same parents] is a fun guy. He wasn't allowed to come out and play family for a long while. I like him a great deal, and hope that circumstances will force us together some day. (Mom’s funeral wasn’t enough.)
I wasn’t raised in the same house as Half-bro 1, so while we’re not at odds; we’re not close either. Like Brother Number One he’s got a great wit and he’s fun to be around. (When he’s forced to be around, say, at a funeral.)

We haven't been to see kin up north for nearly 3 years. My dad and stepmom still live in the heart of the cold, in mosquito country, amidst a cloud of tobacco smoke.
I miss them of course, but we loathe the weather, abhor the bugs and suffer in the communal nicotine.

I never fail to be disappointed in people. I’m confident that I am a regular source of disappointment for those who know and love me.
For a long time I thought family was the group of people who knew about one another’s failures and loved anyway, but my personal history has proven that to be a myth.

I cling tightly to these people:
----my stunningly handsome and brilliant husband who genuinely enjoys my banter, which is fun for both of us,
----two bright, joyful, clever, loving and glorious “tween” girls at home,
----my amazing, savvy, independent, gorgeous, smart and funny grown daughter in STL,
----and my son-in-law who’s a kind and supportive hubby to my Girl and whose personality and wit fit perfectly in the fold.
These bring great joy.