Being the youngest child in a family for the first five years of my life, I have a very good memory of the early days with my younger stepbrother, who was four when we first met, and my younger stepsister, who was three.
It was Halloween night when Matt, Jeremy, and I first met them. We had just come home from trick-or-treating and were in the playroom (later called the “den”) going through our candy. This was the late seventies when it was safe for children to eat candy before their parents checked it. Ian came in first and saw my pile of candy. The first thing he did was come over and stomped on it. Meghan stood in the doorway watching. Matt and Jeremy liked to tease me and aggravate me, however, they did not tolerate it when someone else was doing it. They pushed Ian off my candy and told him to stop. After that, introductions were made, candy was eaten, and Ian and Meghan left with their father.
Over the next few weeks we started seeing them on weekend afternoons. It was always at our house. We would play outside or in our rooms while our parents spent time together.
One night, our mother had to work so Neil (Ian and Meghan's father) picked us up and took us to Woonsocket. He said we were going to Ian and Meghan's house. It was a nice house on a dead end. The thing I remember most about this house was that I could reach the sinks and the counters with ease. I was only five years old and very small for my age, but I didn't need a stool to reach anything. Neil informed us that the house was originally built for “midgets.”
Today “little people” is the PC term.
We went and checked out Ian and Meghan's toys for a while until Neil said we had to leave because Ian and Meghan's mother was on her way home.
Over the next few weeks Ian and Meghan began spending the night at our house. Our parents put a bed in Matt and Jeremy's room for Ian. For Meghan, they got a roll-a-way bed for Meghan which was folded up and put in my closet every Sunday when she left. Soon they spent every weekend at our house. For me, the transition seemed very normal. They became our brother and sister.
Over the years they spent weekends during the school year with us and all summer. We were raised for thirteen years as one big family: two parents and five siblings.
Right before I turned 18 our parents had trouble and decided to divorce. We stopped seeing our step family and even stopped speaking to them. Ian and Meghan never met or even knew about their step niece, who was born seven months after Neil moved out. It is hard to believe that we were such a close blended family for so many years because in a blink of an eye they were all out of our lives for good.
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