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This is the moth radio hour from PRX and I'm Catherine Burns

In this week's hour we're hearing stories about family dynamics. It can be tricky to understand our place and roles in our own families

I personally come from a classic blended family the first weekend after their wedding my step-daddy Wayne and my mama

Left 12-year-old me and my siblings with my new step grandparents mama and Pa Harold who lived in a farm in rural Alabama

My 14,000 person hometown was metropolis by comparison

Everything was unfamiliar the first night Pa Harold asked if I'd like to go down the hill and pick out a watermelon to cut up for dessert

I was excited to have a way to pitch in I picked out a nice fat green melon and struggled to hoisted up over my head

I got about two-thirds of the way up the long red clay mud driveway when boom the watermelon slipped under my hands

Felt to the ground and cracked open in the dirt

Three times I went down the hill for another watermelon and three times I get close to the top

Then drop it I felt so embarrassed but Pa Harold just looked at me kindly went down with me to get a fourth and carried it home

12-year-old me assumed Pa Harold was thinking I was some silly city girl

But he didn't say a word to anyone about my fumbling grip

He made me feel welcome into this new family of mine until the day he died

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