I met my mom for the first time when I was 11 years old.

I grew up with a single dad most of my childhood. My mother left around the time I turned three, came back, left again at age six and picked me up sporadically on weekends after that. My grandma felt like the closest thing I had to a motherly figure. She moved in partly to help take care of my brother and me and partly for my dad to take care of her. She did her best to fill in the motherly role and I appreciate her more than she knows for that, but something always felt missing.

When my dad started to date, I was happy because I liked seeing him happy. As a personal rule though, my dad never brought women around my brother and I until they were serious and he was sure they were safe for us physically and emotionally. I knew that he had been seeing somebody, he used the nickname ‘pool chick’ around me because she owned a pool cleaning business, for about a month and there had been no talk about meeting her yet. One Thursday and slight miscommunication changed that.

It was my fifth grade year, and every Thursday after school I stayed at a Bible study called Beach Club until four. This Thursday in particular though was close to the end of the school year, and the club had wrapped up for the year. I went home on the bus like any other day and walked into my apartment to follow my daily routine. Usually, I would walk in, go straight to my dad’s room where he worked from home, say hello, talk about how our days were and then go to the living room to do my homework. That day though, the routine was thrown off. I walked into the apartment and into my dad’s room but something was different. There was a woman in there with him sitting on his bed eating lunch and talking. I immediately froze and forgot how to speak not sure what to do in that situation. The three of us sat there in an awkward silence until my dad broke the tension with a simple “hello.”

Six years later, I know ‘pool chick’ as Shannon or mom. I didn’t know it on the day I accidentally met her, but she became the mom I never really had. I have a mother of course, I was not grown in my dad’s lab, but she has never really been a mom. My story on why I don’t see my birth mom is a long and dramatic one, so the best way to sum up our relationship would be saying that it’s non-existent. She was more of an aunt who picked me up a weekend every few months and I would hang out with. Shannon was finally a constant mother figure I always craved growing up.

I confuse people when I talk about my mom versus my mother. My whole family tree is very confusing actually, but my mom situation is the hardest for me to explain. I call my birth mom my mother and people ask if I am adopted, which just confuses them more when I say no. My mom is technically my step mom but using ‘step’ feels like I am not giving her enough credit. After my dad died, people asked me why I continued to live with my step mom and did not move in with my birth mom. The question to me has seemed ludicrous. I have lived with Shannon longer than I’ve ever lived with my birth mom, so for me to move in with a woman I barely know or love seems like a ridiculous idea. Of course people don’t know the whole backstory, so I simply tell them I have not seen my birth mom since last May and I do not plan on seeing her anytime soon.

My mom and I have a connection I have never experienced with anybody else. I felt bonded to her in short time after meeting her and it has only grown stronger throughout the years. No matter how crazy life gets, we face it together. Most of the time dragging the other through it.

Through the years I have been able to come to the realization of my own values. Family to me has never meant a connection through blood because that makes it seem so simple and takes away from the work it takes to be family. I consider a woman I have known for six years much more of a mother than the person who gave birth to me because of the difference of love and effort each have put in.