My Three Families

I've got kind of a funny family setup because I've actually got three different families. First, my immediate family including kids, parents and so on. Then there is my step family who are just as much my family as the immediate one. And finally, there is my family in Denmark who also is just as much my family as the other two.

What makes this a little weird is that My immediate family doesn't really know much about my step family and little about my Danish family and my step family doesn't know a thing about my Danish family and only a little about my immediate family   Then, the Danish family doesn't know anything about the other two families except that they do know my Mother and my oldest Son.

The Way this all happened.......

My immediate family is my 2 sons, my wife, her daughter and my Mother and Step Father. There is also my wife's family. This bunch doesn't t really know my step family because they, the step family were all raised in Oklahoma. They are my 5 step brothers and sisters. Well. actually, they do know them a little bit and they do know 2 of the step sisters quite well because they have made there way west and we see them often. But, then there is the Mom of the step siblings and all the rest of that family, kids etc. who only I know. My Mother also knows their Mother but the only reason for that is because she married her husband who is the father of the 5 step siblings and the father that raised me in California  while they all were raised in Oklahoma.

This should be approaching a '10' on the boring meter by now but I'm going on with it anyway because I've got this whole page to fill with family stuff and this story will definitely do it.

My Step father who is the father of the 5 step siblings, as I mentioned, raised me and as for my real father, I didn't ever know him because I left Denmark when I was very young and he stayed. (I'll have more on that later) Because my step father was in my life for so long, I got to know his kids (the 5 step siblings) who lived most of the time in Oklahoma ( most of them still do). But because of the distance between California and Oklahoma, my family never really got to know them. They only knew they existed (except the two that came west). The same goes for the Oklahoma family. they didn't really know much about my family either due to the distance and also the fact that I had a habit of changing wives often there for a while. I hardly knew what was what myself for a while. Did I mention that I don't have any brothers or sisters?  Well it's true so this also kept me interested in the Oklahoma family as a youngster.

All the while this is going on, there is a whole other family we left in Denmark including my real father. This would be my aunts, uncles, cousins, all on my mothers side because I knew nothing about dear old dad and his people.

Even though I was very young when I left Denmark, I still remember most of the family from there and even spoke with my aunts from time to time because my Mother always kept in touch. Still, I was the only one who knew them besides my Mom.

Then when I got married again (#3), my wife who is from a close and fairly large family couldn't stand the fact that I didn't know Dad and basically at that time didn't much care. In my mind, Dad was the one who raised me. So, she went on a mission to locate Dad and did. he was still living in the same town we left him in 40 years ago.

Now, I know my real Dad and it came at a good time since my  other Dad had just passed away. Actually this happen before his passing and he (step Dad)  knew I was in contact and though it was great.

Now with all this in mind, I have a job that has recently demanded that I do quite a bit of travel overseas. So I took that opportunity to plan a visit to Denmark. Since there were only aunts an uncles when I left, there were now going to be cousins that I have never met and didn't even know existed because they were born or grew up after I left.

It's way to late to make a long story short but I'll try to cut this short. If you're still with

 me, you must either be very bored, have nothing going on or you've been foolishly thinking this might have a big ending. Well I can't speak for choices 1 and 2 but as for three, forget it. This will probably be as painfully non-climatic as it has been suggesting. You should have listened to your instincts back near the beginning when you though this was a bunch of nonsense.

Ok where was I? by the way, thanks for sticking it out. You must be here till the wheels fall of if you're reading this.So, I went there (Denmark) and met all my Danish family and guess who? Dear old Dad.

 Now, I left out a very interesting tidbit. When my oldest son graduated from high school, my Mother sent him to Denmark as a gift and he met my Father. So as an extra twist, my son met him before I did.I was truly amazed at what a great family I have over there and quite a bunch there is to boot! I can't even begin to go over all the fun I had meeting these folks but it was great. They all treated me like I never left and I felt as if I've known them forever. I can't wait to go back. This is about my Mom's family. Dad lives in another part of Denmark and doesn't really know any of Moms family so when I saw him, I had anther whole family to meet.

By now I'm overdosed on family. Don't forget, I'm the guy who came to America with only my Mom and has spent this whole life with no other blood relative near me. I was quite used to it and liked it that way, besides, it made life very simple around holidays an so forth.

Well that's it. Only a short time ago, I was family challenged and now since getting to know more of the Oklahoma family since my Step Dad's

 death and recently going to Denmark, I've got more family than I can keep track of!

By the way... I'm still an only child. even though my real Dad remarried, he never had any other kids except the step children he married into. You want to hear about them?? Just kidding. I didn't ask about them and really don't much care. I'm sure they feel the same.

                                  You can see all the family photos by checking these links: