The Family

by Rebecca Schoenkopf

Jimmy is by far the youngest of many children from many marriages. He’s 15, and the next in line above him is 26, while the oldest several are deep into their 40s. So although there are many brothers and sisters for him—six or seven or eight depending on whom you count—really he’s alone, an only child. Since I’ve been his de facto mama since he was a baby, our (many) brothers and sisters are more like uncles and aunts. And since I don’t have any biological babies, there are no brothers/nephews or sisters/nieces for him to grow up with all in the same noisy house. Instead it’s just him and me and it almost always has been.

Being an only child even with six or seven or eight brothers or sisters, having a mother who died when he was a baby, having a dad in his 70s who’s somewhat like a grandpa maybe and who doesn’t live with him, have combined to make Jimmy hungry for family. Once, when he was eight, we were in Oregon seeing friends, and as he ran around their lush brookside land shooting off his cap gun, he looked at me and asked plaintively, “Are they our family?” And the gruff old fireman-stepdad of my high school friend started to cry right then and there, unashamed.

not Rebecca's family ... see note below

We’ve always known there was one more sister out there for Jimmy—his first mom, Leslie (my stepmom), had a baby girl who went into foster care and was adopted. We have pictures of her at maybe a year old—a sweet-faced, big-eyed, little African-American girlbaby—and when we’re counting off all our brothers and sisters on our fingers (which it requires; it’s a very confusing “California family”), Jimmy always includes the Amanda he’s never met. I always vaguely assumed they’d manage to find each other when they were grown, but it came this week, unexpected and thrilling. Jimmy has a sister, 21 years old and freaking beautiful. She looks so exactly like their mother Leslie (who was an effortlessly glamorous actress and centerfold) it took my breath away. Amanda and Jimmy have the same nose. It’s equally adorable on both of them.

My son is so excited to have found his sister—on Facebook, as it happens, and why wouldn’t it?—and the entire family has flipped its shit. Leslie’s dad, Jimmy’s Grandpa Michael, has been posting hello-we-love-you messages on Amanda’s wall roughly seven times per 15 minutes, and I would too, but I don’t want to scare her off. Nor do I want the family who raised her to feel we’re trying to steal her away, as if we assume we’re her rightful family and all they did was raise her. To this day, there are people who correct me every time I call Jimmy my son—“Brother,” they interrupt, and I’ve explained it over and over, that every boy needs a mother, and it’s not up to them to decide anyway, and they keep doing it, blithely undeterred, because they think they are adorable, maybe, or maybe they’re actually offended and interrupting out of principle, but nonetheless if we are grabbing Amanda so greedily to our bosoms, how does her real family—the family that raised her the last 20 years—feel?

You know what? The more I think about this as I write, the more I come to only one conclusion: Let them be responsible for their own feelings! Maybe we can steal her—greedy!—for the holidays this year too. My son would be over the moon, and his are the only feelings for which I’m responsible. Also—and don’t tell Jimmy this, please—but I posted on Facebook that I needed a used Wii for Christmas if anybody wanted to unload one, and it took all of 14 minutes before a friend decided to donate one still in its box. Really, I’m doing him a favor, since it’s a year old and all, is what he’s claiming, and I felt bad about the pricetag of zero for about five seconds before I gave in to my better instincts and accepted. All I’m saying is Facebook is awesome, and dreams do come true.

Editor's note: I found the photo on Wikimedia Commons. It's titled Los Angeles, Kinderreiche Familie and the description says Kindersegen in Amerika! and somehow it seemed to go with Rebecca's story on this family-centric holiday weekend.

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