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Warmest Regards: Praise for a step parent

Every week across America, many weddings include more than the bride and groom.

With so many second weddings the cast often includes the merging of new families. Often that means more step family relationships.

It may create stepchildren or stepparents.

And that, my dear readers, often means learning to accept “the steps.”

If you do, you very well might be rewarded with a peaceful and harmonious blended family. Perhaps you might even find pleasure in your new family.

It all depends on your attitude.

One acquaintance that recently became part of a blended family when she got married said it was never going to be a problem for her. “I’m just going to blank him like he doesn’t exist,” she said.

That made me sad, because I personally know how rewarding life can be when a stepparent joins the family.

I was 13 when my mother married again. At the wedding, several people asked me what I thought about my stepfather.

How would I know? It was a new experience for all of us. My mother married a man who was never married before, and he had absolutely no idea how to raise a family.

But I had a smart mother who had never told a lie.

On her wedding day, she told me she married Ziggy because she knew he would build the kind of family that would benefit my brother and me.

I had no idea what she meant, but I knew my mother had lived her life for her children. She would never do anything that would harm her kids.

From the start, she established rules about how we would interact as a blended family.

The number one rule was that she was in charge of discipline. If Ziggy had a problem with us, he was supposed to tell her.

It was funny though. Ziggy never seemed to have a problem with us. He thought his role was to protect us. Sometimes that meant protecting me from my mom’s harsh discipline.

When I made my mother worry because I was late getting home from a dance, she said as a punishment I was grounded for a month.

Ziggy went to bat for me. “Isn’t that a bit harsh, Ann,” he said.

I was a clueless teenager, but I did notice after my mother married Ziggy our standard of living improved. On every payday, he took all of us out for pizza.

I thought we were rich when we had a case of soda and a big tin of potato chips delivered every week. As a single mother, goodies like that were something Mom couldn’t afford.

Ziggy also brought a sense of calm and harmony.

There was only one thing wrong with him. He wasn’t my father.

My “real father” lived far away with his new family. I got to see him so seldom and I admit I sometimes fell asleep crying for the father I missed.

Ziggy tried to help. He worked on the railroad so he got free train passes. He gave me passes to visit my father.

When I came back from visiting my dad, I couldn’t stop talking about how much fun I had with my dad. I probably didn’t remember to thank Ziggy for the railroad passes.

Ziggy was the one who patiently taught me to drive in his new Plymouth with the big fins. It takes courage to teach a teenager how to drive.

But all I talked around was that my dad taught me to parallel park when I went to visit.

I was clueless about Ziggy’s feelings. When I smashed Ziggy’s car, all he asked was “Was anyone hurt?’

I knew he was one in a million, yet I didn’t think he loved me. But when I got seriously sick and had to be transported to the hospital, I saw Ziggy sobbing. It was then that I realized he did love me.

Yet when I was planning my wedding my mother said Ziggy should be the one to walk me down the aisle because he was the one who raised me.

I said I wanted my dad to do it.

Ziggy quickly stopped it from becoming a problem when he announced my dad should do it. “I’ll be the one smiling with pride when you walk down the aisle” he said.

When my mother’s Alzheimer’s got too severe for her to remain at home, she had to go to a nursing home an hour away.

Even in ice and snow, Ziggy visited and stayed by her side every single day. Nurses said they never saw such deep devotion.

As fate would have it, Ziggy and I were the last two family survivors. When he got Parkinson’s and had to go to a nursing home, I brought lots of the goodies he loved when I visited every week.

It was a long drive when I visited but with all he did for my mother, I definitely wanted to be there for him.

To this day I remain in awe of my mother’s smarts in bringing Ziggy into our family.

I am forever thankful for the gift Ziggy was for my brother and me.

Email Pattie Mihalik at newsgirl@comcast.net