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When my stepdad proposed to my mom, he did it while we were on a family vacation. He sat down with my sister, myself and his two sons to tell us his plan before my mom had any clue what was going on. Then he waited until we were all having dinner together before surprising my mom with a ring. In his speech, he said he wanted to propose in front of all of us because this ring didn’t just represent the marriage of him and my mom, but the blending of two families.

The video below from SoulPancake brought that amazing memory flooding back. It’s about a divorced couple expressing their feelings for the stepparents who are helping raise their son.

It’s so rare to hear gratitude expressed for the “other” men and women in our lives.

 

My mom and Sam didn’t get married until I was in college so I didn’t have the experience of really being brought up by someone other than my mom and dad, but Sam has definitely been a father figure since. My kids adore him, as they do my stepmother, and I’ve found one of the great advantages to having divorced parents (at least in my case) is having a plethora of doting grandparents.

Not to mention, additional aunts, uncles and cousins who make our holiday dinners into the large family affairs I always saw in movies but never had as a kid.