My Disfunctional Family

Image by santacrewsgirl via Flickr

I never ever have had what one would call a "standard" family. You know, the one you see in those framed pictures, with mothers, fathers and other relatives all over the place...My mother got herself divorced when I was 2 or 3 years old, and for a few years I remember being happy, having a sort of 2/3rds of a family, that's being me, my grandmother and my aunt (my grandmother's sister, that is). I don't know if there were other men in my mother's life during that period, but good as it was, it didn't last for long...My mother got remarried when I was 6 years old and after a year, my sister came along, then my brother and then the other brother...And after that, life has never been the same... I felt I didn't belong in that family, my stepfather made it pretty clear he didn't like me around, so I was sent to live with my aunt (and so I lived, on and off, until I got married). My mom and her husband never got along, so she divorced him also. Life got pretty hard after that. My mother had to work to earn enough to feed and dress us all, I was the one that had to entertain the kids and my grandmother was the one that cooked and cleaned and washed and cared for us. We all loved her very much, I think in a sense she was like a surrogate mother for us.
Meanwhile, our mother was busy looking for another step-father for us all. We saw an interesting assortment of guys in our house, from a former priest to a married guy, until mother settled to the worst of them all, the crazy, alcoholic Willy. When mother married Willy I was already married, with my own family problems to solve, my own demons to hunt. But I know that life was crazy back at mother's. And things went from bad to worse and it culminated with mother leaving everything and going to Germany with Willy. At that time I was already divorced, living in another city. I didn't get along with Willy, he made it very clear I am not to set foot in their house anymore, so I complied. I didn't have any choice, he was crazy, and it would have made my mother's life worse that it was.
What happened after mother left it is a mistery to me. My sister was already married and went to live in her husbands home town, and my two brothers were left like that, after my mother had to sell the house to pay the debts they had. I never asked them how they managed...WE don't talk much and we don't keep in thouch, only sporadically. The one I keep in touch with is my sister.
This is, in short, the story of our family.
Now, my mother is a widow again (I like to call her "the Black Widow" because all her three husbands died) and she is living in Germany. I live in Israel. One of my brothers lives in England, the other brother and my sister live in Romania, but it different cities. So, can we call this a family???

After I got divorced I swore I would't get married again...I didn't want my son to go through the hell that I went through will all the different "fathers" that I had. I was alone for aproximately ten years and only then I gathered the courage to get married for the second time...Now, no matter what happens, you'll have to drag me out of this marriage, because I am staying...I had enough marriages and relationships and men to last me a life-time. And two children from two different fathers is enough.

We go through a pretty rough patch righ now and I hope to God that I'll have the strength to go on, no matter what, because I made enough mistakes in my life and I had enough of paying for them...