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Our step family is a shadow of what once was. It is a specter of what could be. It is a reminder of broken shards of the families that could have been.

Our step family is holidays with half our hearts. It is reunions with absent guests.

Our step family is an imitation of what we think could have been. What should have been. It is an unreal comparison to perfection. It is a dim reflection of what we dream family should be.

It is pain. It is grief. It is a cyclical reminder that we are not whole.

Our children want what they once had. My kids want their father. They want their children’s grandfather. His children want their family before it imploded.

And if we’re completely honest, we want the same thing.

As much as we love and want each other, we long for wholeness. We want the dream…as though there is such a thing. We want what was intact before death and divorce shattered it.

We want one holiday that is not a reminder of the separateness of the two sides of our family. We want one holiday that we manage without the awkwardness of relationships that were forged in the fire of loss.

Grief is our guest at every family gathering because the people who should be here are not. We try. We ache. We grieve.

We do our best. It is all we have.