She is just great, man.

She got with my biological dad when she was young. She had two kids with him, and he would just beat on her, but she would take it all to shield us from it and put up just enough of a fight to make sure it stayed that way. She stayed with him despite all this because she didn't really know what to do, and while most everyone knew or thought something, no one really helped. It got to the point where he sold her at least once as a prostitute, which is where my brother came from. After 10 years of this, of getting slammed through windshields and beaten, she just left with us. I'd like to imagine she got some sort of revenge on him, but I'd never ask.

After a while of us being very not-well-off, she met my dad through a friend, he was just doing his thing being a bachelor around 30, smoking and drinking and living it up with his roommates. After he meets my mom, he convinces his roommates to move out, quits smoking on the spot to make sure we had a healthy house. I wouldn't say until recently that they were ever maybe even decently off, but I surely would have never guessed it by my childhood, they'd do anything for us.

I can't say I clearly recollect most of this, but my sister was I suppose reasonably messed up by the whole first 10 years of her life, she just doesn't really have it together. She ended up having a kid with this guy, and my mom and dad just stepped in and have been raising him.

My parents are the coolest, man.