Remember a few months ago I got a new brother? Well, my family expanded again this weekend, and now we’re part Jewish. I even ate a potato knish.
I went to my Dad’s place in Montreal this weekend, to get to know him better, and to meet his lovely third and final wife’s family. My sister went too, as well as my son and his girlfriend.
My Dad and Merle have been together for ten years now, but apparently Merle’s family only found out about us recently. We were a secret!
Merle has three children and one of them – Amy – lives in Montreal. Her other daughter lives in BC and her son lives in California, so I haven’t met them yet. My new step-siblings have partners and children and stuff, so you can see this is a sigificant addition to my family. I liked all the ones I met, which is good because there’s nothing worse than suddenly acquiring a whole whack of bad relatives.
Our family is wider than it’s tall, so we have a family vine instead of a family tree. I redrew my vine today to accommodate my latest siblings. I now have 11 current and former siblings. If you start in the middle of the diagram, you’ll find me (because I am the centre of my own universe). My siblings from my mother’s subsequent relationships (and her subsequent partners’ previous relationships) extend to the right. My siblings from my father’s subsequent relationships (and his subsequent partners’ previous relationships) extend to the left. My newest siblings are on the far left. (Click the picture for a bigger version.)
The only couple in the diagram who are still together are Dad and Merle, which is interesting because they’re the only couple in the diagram who never had kids together. Coincidence? Hmmm.
It probably sounds like I get new siblings all the time, but it actually doesn’t happen all that often. These might be the last ones I ever get. You never know.
Oh, and did I mention the new granny? Her name is Nanny Sadie. She’s 91, sharp as a tack and funny. I like her a lot. And there’s a new niece too. Her name is Lexi. She’s 2, sharp as a tack and funny. I like her a lot.
My Dad and Merle have a funny little dog with a big personality. Lola.
Everybody seems very nice, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with all these new relatives at this point. I guess we’ll have to figure that out. (At least they’re Jewish, so I won’t have to get them all Christmas presents, right?)
All in all, it was a lovely weekend full of interesting new people and good food. My Dad and I even ran together on Sunday. Just a couple hundred yards, but it was an impressive start. He used to run marathons. I think we should both start training and run a marathon together in 2009.
Oh! And something odd happened as we were leaving. We got in the car, and just as we were pulling out, we saw three teenagers chasing a skunk down the street!
I still hope it sprayed them 😉
Me too James. I think we should’ve run after them and documented it.
This Labour Day, I went to our third annual family get together (my mother’s side only) and discovered cousins I had never met! How could I not have known about these cousins? They are in Ontario (not far away) and they are as closely related as other cousins of whom I was aware. Maybe they had never been invited to one of these things? At any rate, it was quite fun to meet people who had the family resemblance so I empathize with this entry.