When Jared was sick, he had told me he wanted me to get remarried. He said he wanted the kids to have a dad. He also told me he was worried about the impact his death was going to have on his children. He loved the show “Intervention” and had noticed a common thread in the people battling drug addiction - they all had had extreme childhood trauma, and in several situations it was the death of a parent. I feel fortunate that we were able to have some of these conversations, and that I was aware of some of his wants and concerns.
A few months after Jared passed away, I got “tricked” into my first date with a guy named Jace (yes, same as my son). He, his wife, and 4 children lived in mine and Jared’s neighborhood for a couple of years until Jace’s wife passed away. He and his children moved away a few months before Jared was diagnosed with cancer. Jared knew Jace, not super well, but he knew him much better than I had. At the time of our first date, I had no interest in dating. Long story short, we ended up getting married several months later! Having two Jaces in the family has been different, and we sometimes have to refer to them as “Big Jace” and “Little Jace.”
Going into our second marriages, both Jace and I were overwhelmed at the thought of raising 8 kids. I had never wanted a huge family because I didn’t want to be the frazzled mom that was so busy I didn’t have time to really connect with each kid and give them the love and attention they deserved and needed. Four children was my magic number. And it doubled overnight.
I could summarize those following several years in 2 words… ABSOLUTE CIRCUS. We had 8 kids under 13, all coping with the loss of a parent, and all managing the new complicated family dynamic.
Blending families is no joke. I’ll do my best to describe it. Imagine getting married and moving in with your in-laws who still have young kids at home, and doing it for several years. It’s merging two large families under the same roof that have been raised differently, with different views and ideas of how things should be done, with both sides feeling like their way is the “best way.” Because of that, there was always somebody upset about something, or something we were doing wrong as parents, if not everything we were doing wrong as parents. And I became exactly what I didn’t want to be - a frazzled mom that spent most days not flourishing, but merely surviving!
Right after I got married I was lucky enough to sell mine and Jared’s home without putting it on the market. Shortly after, I received this message from the buyer: “Everyone who has come in here to help us {move} has talked about what a wonderful spirit this home has. I really believe a lot of that is you and what you had set up here.” I know that the wonderful spirit they felt in that home had nothing to do with me, it was where Jared had passed away peacefully. They weren’t the only people who had told me that our home had a special feeling, and it was hard to leave that home and the 8 years of memories and friends we had made there.
My kids and I moved into Jace’s small home about 15 miles away for 3 months until I could find the right home and neighborhood to raise the children. Those were a rough couple of months packing a lot of kids into a small home. In the beginning though, the new family was exciting and fun. All 5 of the boys rushed home from school to play sports together in the neighbor’s front yard. Four of the boys (including my Jace and Drew) all wanted to sleep in the same bed every night, so we had 4 boys sleeping sideways on one bed. Averie started off on a crib mattress on our floor. And for about 3 weeks it was a big, exciting party. That excitement began to wear off, especially as the parenting differences became more evident.
Jared and I were very aligned in our parenting and where we placed high importance, such as rules, structure, discipline, consequences, and respect. My husband Jace was much more laid back in rules and structure, partly because he was a single dad with a full-time job, and he was relying on help from several sources and couldn’t control a lot of what was happening before he got home at night. He was a germaphobe, so he was much more strict on things like washing hands, making sure if you were outside you had shoes on, and if you took your shoes off in the house, the socks needed to come off too. And it drove him nuts the way my boys would “man-handle” their greasy pizza!! So naturally, I would get upset over things he viewed as silly, and he got upset over things I thought were silly. Not being on the same page created complications. And it was magnified by two sets of children who had been raised according to our varying expectations. The reality of blending a family is, it’s just a whole lot to ask of kids to share a home with step siblings who have been raised differently, no matter which side of the coin you’re on. Another part that was tricky for me was this - raising somebody else’s children who had different needs and expectations than what I was used to. It became a fine balance between teaching rules, structure, responsibility, and self-sufficiency, while still trying to be supportive and attentive to their needs. But it usually wasn’t perceived or received the way it was intended, which was always frustrating.
I remember a few times that Brynlee would get upset with me and felt like it wasn’t fair that she was having to do things, or that she was getting in trouble for other things that her step siblings weren’t. I definitely understood her frustration, but I told her I had the responsibility to raise her in a way that her dad would be okay with. Luckily she was able to see things with a mature lens and accepted my position (most of the time).
For several years my days were packed with never-ending laundry, hours and hours of carpools, practices, and games, and I went from figuring out dinners last minute to having full-blown meal plans, doubling recipes and trying lots of new ones. I had to do a really good job of weekly planning for meals to avoid multiple grocery store visits. And even then, we went through so much milk that I usually ended up at the store 2-3 times a week, despite careful planning. I don’t love to cook, so this was a big adjustment. I also get carsick pretty easily, so most evenings were spent recouping from all of the driving. I was also used to having a “break” from the kids while they were at school, but most days in the first couple of years I felt like I was on-call from kids at school constantly needing something, and sometimes that was overwhelming. My saving grace from all of the chaos was my weekly breakfasts with my friends and my time spent dancing at the gym.
I went into the new marriage really just wanting to be a team player and to create unity. And in doing so I over-sacrificed and created a huge imbalance. This will always be the biggest regret and mistake that I live with. I felt like it was my job to fill in all the gaps. But I was filling gaps that before the marriage had been filled by multiple sources - a nanny, grandparents, aunts and uncles, neighbors, Jace… And it was impossible to fill those gaps without making my kids a lower priority. Before I got remarried, Brynlee had been taking dance lessons for several years. Jace and Drew were playing sports, and Averie was in gymnastics. When I got married and moved, I pulled them from the programs they loved. And I was juggling new kids with demanding schedules and I had to put my kids’ activities on hold. In addition we were selling 2 homes, finding a new home, moving several times, getting kids into new schools, etc. It was a lot. My kids were begging for months to get back into what they loved doing, all the while watching me spending my time and energy driving their step siblings everywhere for their own activities, and I was overwhelmed not knowing where I was going to fit everything in! I felt guilty every single day, but I didn’t know how to fix it. By the time I figured it out, for Brynlee and Jace it was too late. I’ll expand on that in a bit. I really wish I could go back for a re-do. I would’ve balanced my priorities more, given my kids the time and energy they deserved, accepted that I couldn’t do it all, and hired someone to help out. I’m mad at myself for feeling like it was my responsibility to try to do it all. It wasn’t.
It’s one thing to experience the added responsibilities and stresses for yourself, but it’s much different and elevated when you watch the impact on your children. I’ve heard it’s common for kids to feel displaced in blended families. When I got remarried, Brynlee lost her identity. She went from being the oldest child to having 2 older siblings, and I think she just decided it was easier to crawl in a shell than to express her opinions. I remember my mom voicing frequently that she was worried about Brynlee, that Brynlee wasn’t the talkative, funny, confident person that she had always been. I agreed with my mom, but I didn’t really know what to do for her or how to fix it. We made our new home in an area that was probably the most competitive community in the entire state, so when I did finally get Brynlee back into dance, the dance program had had their elite dancers picked out for a few years, and she wasn’t making the teams where she could progress. So she went from being front and center in performances to not making it. She dabbled with volleyball after that, with similar results. So she was dealing with all of these changes, and at the same time she lost her hobbies. She did finally start to make some good friends, and I started seeing her spunk and confidence come back when she was with her friends. She still didn’t act like herself at home, but I was at least happy that she could be herself occasionally. It was progress.
Jace was thriving in sports before we moved. I had a dad from his football team tell me not to put him in pads until 7th grade. This dad was an ex-professional athlete and when I told him I thought 7th grade would be too late for pads, he reassured me, “Jace will be just fine. He’s very athletic.” And about a month after Jared died Jace had scored 48 pts in his basketball game, so I decided to trust the process. Shortly after all of this we moved to the new area, and there were several factors that became disastrous for Jace in sports. 1) As already mentioned, we moved into a highly competitive area (and by highly competitive I mean our high school produced 2 NFL starting quarterbacks and countless D1 college players), that also had their elite teams picked by 5th grade, and Jace doesn’t have an assertive, “Put-me-in-coach!” personality, 2) Most kids in the area were focusing on one single sport year-round, and Jace was more of a seasonal - football, basketball, baseball kid that couldn’t pick just one, so he wasn’t getting the practice and experience of some of the other kids, 3) He no longer had Jared throwing a ball or shooting hoops with him every night after work, and 4) He was one of the smallest kids in his grade until his Junior year of high school. He is currently about 6’2” but he was probably 5’4” and 90 lbs going into high school! So needless to say, he didn’t end up playing high school sports. I do, however, think he could’ve pursued baseball and I take a lot of blame for that. When Jace was in 5th grade I signed him up for the youth league in the area. Going into the draft he didn’t even know how to hold the bat right. His try out didn’t go well and he was one of the last kids in the league to be picked. But he quickly learned and had a great season his first year, earning several MVP game balls and becoming the starting pitcher for his team, and eventually made the all-star team. After his first season his coach asked me if he could join the new competitive team he was coaching. It required a lot of travel and time that I didn’t have since I was juggling other kids’ competitive sports schedules, so I had to turn him down. (Remember my biggest mistakes and regrets?? This one sometimes keeps me up at night.)
For Drew and Averie all of the change was much easier because of how young they were. Neither one of them remember life before the blended family, and unfortunately all they know about Jared is through stories.
Drew was the beneficiary of having older brothers, and as a young kid he was one of the more aggressive kids in sports. One of my very favorite memories is watching tiny little 8-year-old Drew playing catcher for 12-year-old Jace in our driveway as Jace was practicing his pitching. He didn’t have a catcher’s mask and I was always worried he would take a pitch to the face but he was a great little catcher! He started baseball in 3rd grade and was immediately one of the best on all of his teams - even when he was a couple years younger than some of the other kids. Both boys always had great “baseball sense” and were really fun to watch. In 3rd grade Drew’s coach would sometimes put him in the outfield and he would have at least one dive catch every game that would have the crowd in amazement. One time he had a dive-catch in the outfield and then threw the runner out on 2nd for a double play and none of the other kids even knew what was going on! After 6th grade Drew got pulled into a competitive league. But his regular league coach wasn’t willing to give him up, so he juggled both teams. This worked for one reason only. The coach that recruited him on the competitive team reached out to me and really wanted Drew on his team, and he was willing to pick him up from our home whenever needed since his son was on the team and he was coaching. Drew learned a lot on that higher level team and became best friends with the coach’s son and ended up spending a lot of time at their home. Drew’s very last baseball game he played in was in 7th grade at a winter tournament in Mesquite, where he had an amazing game pitching and became the MVP of that game. At that particular tournament I noticed that as Drew would get up to bat he would do a weird signal with his hand and point up. It looked like a Catholic ritual thing and I asked him what in the world he was doing at bat. He told me he was dedicating that “at bat” to Jared, which was why he was pointing upwards. I got a laugh out of that. At this point the coach of the team, JD, had become like a second dad to Drew. A few months later JD was killed in a freak accident. Drew didn’t play baseball after that, and I’ve always wondered if it was a PTSD response. Drew was also cursed with late development, also being one of the smallest kids in class until his Junior year. He did love basketball and football and was super aggressive,but he was really small. I tried to get him to give football a chance his freshman year but he thought he would likely get killed on the field being as small as he was. He had played quarterback, so his size was a big problem. Like Jace, he was probably 5’4” and 95 lbs.starting high school. He, too, is now around 6’2” as a senior in high school, and he has landed on wrestling, which none of us ever saw coming. I actually like wrestling because Drew isn’t as passionate about it so my stress level isn’t as high. Drew has a lot of natural confidence and to my surprise, has taken a huge interest in fishing.
Averie has always been the carefree, go-with-the-flow child. I was convinced she was going to be kidnapped as a little kid because she liked to talk to anybody and just couldn’t see a problem with helping the random guy who was out walking his dog. She disappeared once at McDonalds and I was panicking trying to find her. She came out of the bathroom, and I told her she couldn’t just disappear and she needed to let me know where she was going. I told her there could be bad guys and her response was, “There’s no bad guys at McDonalds!!” We had several stranger danger discussions and the next day it was like I hadn’t said anything! She loved to be social and was always with friends. She was very spunky and sassy, but in school her teachers would always say how quiet and shy she was, which always surprised me. If I could describe Averie, I would say she is a person that always has pure and innocent intentions. There isn’t a mean or aggressive bone in her body. Growing up she had very few inhibitions. One night when she was about 8, she wanted to sleep outside on the trampoline. Nobody else wanted to, so she grabbed a blanket and headed out by herself! She was mad when I didn’t let her do it alone. Another time she disappeared and I couldn’t find her anywhere. She was probably about 4. I looked everywhere!! Finally after about an hour I found her, sound asleep under a blanket at the park behind our house. She definitely did not inherit her fearless attitude from me! She has always been self-entertained, and she doesn’t require much. She is very artistic. She loves to draw and paint, and she’s really good at it! She also loves music and concerts, and she loves girly things like lotions, perfumes, painted nails, etc. She’s now a sophomore in high school.
I see Jared in all of the kids. All four of them inherited his pesty nature. Both of the girls were always the tallest kids in class until about 9th grade, then they tapered off around 5’9” - complete opposite of our boys. Brynlee got Jared’s perfect teeth and his long legs. Averie looks a lot like her cousin on Jared’s side. Both Drew and Jace are mini Jareds. They do things all the time that take me back in time and I feel like I’m watching Jared do it. Their mannerisms, their passion and intensity for Oregon football, their knowledge of random sports statistics, their ability to spend an entire Saturday in front of the TV during college football season, their desire to place sports bets, their sense of humor, and their interaction with each other is similar to the banter Jared always had with his own brothers. Jace is like his dad, never the loudest guy in the room but definitely the funniest. My sister sent me a text a couple weeks ago - it was a picture showing me that Jace was at her house. Under the picture she says, “He might be the funniest person alive.”
There are some other decisions I’ve made that I would reconsider if I had to do it again. The first one - I’ve wondered about my decision to take on my new husband’s last name when I got remarried. It made sense to me at the time to show my commitment, and to create a unified blended family. In retrospect, and living through it and seeing the effects, the reality is that I instantly made my children outsiders in their own home and family. Anytime anybody referred to us, we were never the Olson family. If we received neighbor gifts or Christmas cards, they usually didn’t have the Olson name on it at all. At times my kids didn’t even realize that neighborhood gifts left at the door were also intended for them. I think if I had grown up in a home with a different last name, it would’ve had a huge impact on me in trying to find my place or figure out my self worth. Another thing I’d do differently - my kids all shared rooms while my husband’s children got their own rooms. I had Brynlee and Averie (7 yrs apart) sharing a room and Drew and Jace (4 yrs apart) sharing a room, while Jace’s boys that were 2 yrs apart each got their own room. This was another decision made out of differing parenting views - me wanting to teach my children to learn tolerance - knowing that they will probably be sharing a room the rest of their lives, whether that be a companion, a roommate, a spouse… But it was yet another way of over-sacrificing and creating imbalance.
All of these imbalances took a toll over the years and came to a head in 2021 when Brynlee was a Junior in high school. Her anxiety and depression got to a scary level. As we were experimenting with different medications to help her, we had a family trip planned to Hawaii for Spring Break. At the beginning of the trip she had shared some things that were happening in the family that were adding to her anxiety, and for the rest of that trip it was like all of those issues were magnified to the point I couldn’t deny or ignore the problems and imbalances any longer. Several months later I bought a home in the community where I was raised and where Jared was buried - 90 miles from my husband, and I moved away with my 4 kids and we raised our children separately. It was drastic, hard, and expensive, but I knew it was the right decision. For the following 3 years I drove every weekend to spend time with my husband, and during the week I was with the kids. This is when things turned around for Brynlee and Jace, and they began to thrive. The move was hard for Drew and Averie. Drew quickly adjusted but Averie struggled for a couple years making new friends and finding her place at a new school. But I would make the same decision 1,000 times over. Not only were my kids finding themselves again, but the extreme guilt I had been carrying for 7 years was lifted. And my marriage was better because my husband was able to parent the way he wanted to, and I was able to parent the way I wanted to.
One little thing worth mentioning - when I was trying to figure out the necessary change, Brynlee kept saying she really wanted to spend her senior year where I grew up. It made sense to me because I still had family there and she had cousins she was close to, so it wouldn’t be like the kids were just starting a new school completely alone. But I was confused because she said she had always felt like it was “home.” But she had never even lived there before. It turned out that for her it felt like home because it was the place where her dad was buried, and she felt closer to him. I had never considered the impact of Jared’s burial place on our children!
Following graduation, Brynlee spent a couple months in Hawaii, and decided to serve a mission for our church. The missionaries can be called anywhere in the world, so it can be scary waiting to hear where you will be going. She went to NYC, the exact same mission where Jared had served almost 3 decades earlier!! It was really special for her to be in the same place as her dad, and she had several experiences in that time where she could feel Jared’s presence. Jace felt robbed. He had always wanted to serve a mission in New York City like his dad. So when he decided to serve I really wanted him to also have a special calling that connected him to his dad. He ended up serving a mission in Durban, South Africa, which is the same place that Jared’s mom and dad had served right before he was born. So both kids were able to have special callings that connected them to their dad, both feeling like it was the perfect place for them. They both matured and learned a lot while they were away. As a parent of a missionary, you’re always worried about the safety of your kids. Brynlee was living in some of the most dangerous neighborhoods of Brooklyn and the Bronx, and Jace was in a very dangerous country, one time having a gun held to his head. The only thing that brought me peace was knowing that they had a dad on the other side watching over them. They are both home from their missions now and living on their own with roommates. Brynlee is going to school to work in radiology and Jace is still figuring out what he wants to do.
Brynlee’s health has been an issue. After her mission we really tried to tackle her anxiety again. She started seeing a psychiatrist so she could explore different medications. They originally thought it was ADHD, but in the form where her brain just goes a million different directions. Those medications weren’t helping, and after a lot of experimenting, she was diagnosed with Celiacs disease about a year ago. A few months later she was also diagnosed with POTS. The doctors helping us to get answers have told her that many of these autoimmune diseases are triggered by childhood trauma. We have since found out that she was also severely depleted of iron, and wasn’t absorbing iron at all because of the celiacs, and as she began iron infusions, it triggered issues in her back and neck! Her health is slowly on the mend as we get more answers but it has been a long road for sure! Averie has started to show some of the same issues the past couple of years. She also recently got diagnosed with POTS, but luckily with Averie we’ve been able to get answers quicker since Brynlee has already been through all of it.
There's an important lesson I've learned with age and experience and hopefully I can teach somebody who needs to hear it. There's a phrase "the squeakiest wheel gets the oil." This is particularly true in large families. We had some squeaky wheels. And the more oil I would give, the squeakier the wheel would get. It was confusing and I spent years trying to figure it out! It was also stressful because my oil supply would run out and I didn't know how to replenish my oil, and when others needed oil, sometimes I didn't have any! Through experience and therapy I finally figured it out. I was using WD-40, and the squeakiest wheels didn't want WD-40, they wanted AC-90, which is an oil I don't have. I can't give an oil I don't have, so it doesn't matter how much or how little WD-40 I give, it will never fix those squeaks. After figuring that out, I spent more time trying to pinpoint the reason why WD-40 wasn't good enough. But that was also a waste of time because it didn't matter. If I only have WD-40, I can only give what I have. So I can either exhaust my supply on wheels that don't respond to WD-40, or I can save it for the wheels that want and need WD-40. I've made some adjustments, and now I have plenty of WD-40 to go around for the squeaks that want it, and my life has been much easier and less stressful!
There are also many things done right I want to mention.
The kids and I have 2 days of the year that we celebrate and honor Jared. We celebrate his birthday every year by going out for ice cream, and we honor his memory every Oct 18. We do this by taking the day off (the kids have missed school if it’s a school day), and we go out to lunch and we decorate a pumpkin or pumpkins to take to leave at his grave. We sometimes will leave notes or messages, whether it’s written on the pumpkin or on a paper left inside the pumpkin. We also listen to his favorite music in the car. The kids have loved this tradition. Oct 18th is usually a very tender day.
I've also learned that it's important to be real when talking about the deceased. Drew is a very matter-of-fact person and he says that people always "glaze the dead" and then it makes you not believe anything. He says all you ever hear is that they were the funniest, smartest, best at everything person, and if you hear that about every dead person it just can't be true. Yes, the kids want to hear all of the amazing or funny things he did, but they also want to hear about his struggles. I've noticed that the kids relate more to Jared's flaws than his perfections. So they know he was the "funner parent," but he was also the most firm. The kids that served missions know that for a while Jared was extremely homesick on his mission and secretly wanted to get injured so he would be sent home. 🤣 They know we would have disagreements on certain topics, and I'll tell them both of our stands and they usually either see both sides, or some will agree with me and some will agree with Jared. They know that he was actually one of the funniest people ever, but they also know that at times when Jared was left to babysit our little kids, sometimes I'd come home with a child in the street while Jared sitting on the couch watching football. I don't want them to grow up believing he was perfect, or that we had a perfect marriage. I believe that would be a huge disservice to them as they're navigating their own lives and marriages.
The Olson family (Jared’s family) is an amazing example of how to handle their given situation. They have been a huge blessing for me and especially for my kids. They supported me from day 1 and really tried to make my husband and his kids feel included. The additions were always invited to family activities and reunions. Bill included my young step kids in things like BYU basketball games and 24th of July parades that were an all-day events, and Margie included my step daughter in the granddaughter sleepover parties. She also drove to our home to teach my step son guitar lessons for free. Gifts were always equal for my children and step children. When the Olsons had big events or parties like the annual money Easter egg hunt, they’d always send surprise money eggs home to the step kids who had missed. Bill would express his appreciation and gratitude for my new husband to the kids for the sacrifices he had made to raise them. I know for the Olsons it was very difficult to watch somebody step in and raise Jared’s children, but they chose the high road in how they handled it and I will forever be grateful for it. It has helped all of my children to move forward and heal from their loss in the most healthy way.
Last month Neil took my boys to Oregon to experience a Ducks game at Autzen Stadium. They stayed with Brian and Shalyse, and Neil, Brian, my boys, and Brian’s boys all went to the Ducks football game. This would’ve been Jared’s ultimate dream come true, going to Autzen Stadium with his brothers and his boys, and I’m sure he was there with them.
My family has also been amazing, welcoming, inclusive, supportive, and all the things I could ever ask for. I tell my kids a lot that they are very lucky to come from these amazing families who are great examples of love and acceptance.
Since Jace got back from his mission last December, I’ve really focused on connecting with my kids. I’m extremely proud of who they are, and I know Jared is too. I appreciate their resilience, their trust, their ability to accept people and their differences, their loyalty and commitment to family, their support, their ability to forgive, their desire to rise above their circumstances and move forward, their sacrifices on my behalf, their patience with my mistakes, and their unconditional love and support. Some would say we've had a rocky road. I would probably say that at times we’ve had geological disasters! But at the end of the day I’m just very grateful I get to do all of it with them!
