Change of Life Baby

I am the only product of my parents marriage.  They met late in life.  My Mom was a single Mom of two grown sons and my Dad was married with two teenage children.  As my Mom told the story, they'd finally found the loves of their lives.  Mom was a good storyteller and one might think that she embellished the story for my ears.  If you saw him look at her, you would know the story was true.

She was 45, he 47 when I was born and in all practical ways, I was an only child.  My Dad's kids lived with their Mom but were frequent visitors.  I knew they were my siblings, but because of the age difference, they felt more like aunts or uncles.  Mom's boys were already in the service.  One in the Army and one in the Navy.

I guess I was everything you'd expect an only child to be. I had anything I ever wanted, but you wouldn't call me spoiled.  Doted on?  Absolutely, but my parents were survivors of the Depression and in their world you used it up and wore it out.  That was my world.

Things fell apart fairly quickly around the time I was 8 or 9.  First, my Dad's work took a setback.  I never really understood, I just knew things were not the way they used to be.  Then my Dad became ill with a form of cancer.  He had surgery and underwent radiation and fought the good fight, still, in 1958, he passed away.
There was little insurance and my mother while well read and very world smart, had little education. She cleaned houses for wealthy ladies and we collected survivor benefits from Social Security.

We did alright, my Mom and me.  In many ways, she became my best friend.  We laughed a lot.  She did what she could to make my life the best it could be.

There are so many stories within stories here that I could tell, and I guess I will one day, but the moral of this one is that for me ... being a change-of-life baby made me who I am.  The positive side of this story is that my parents gave me the gift of their experience. The negative is that I lost them both early in my life.