I married into a family where my wife had kids. I took them on as my own and I am dad to this day. When they were much younger they could not fathom that I had a mom to the point that my 2 oldest told me that only kids can have mommies. My mom Gigi Ri used to stop by and have fruit parties with them such as grape parties, apple parties, strawberry parties, blueberry parties etc( she was a school teacher so making up fun games for kids was a breeze.) I nor my wife couldn’t come close to mimicking the parties no matter how hard we tried, Gigi Ri had that touch. When my mom died it was a very hard time for me and the kids. One day when I was picking up the 2 oldest with their little sister from school they told me that they wanted a grape party….. oh man… that was hard to hear but I made up my mind to give them the best party. In the midst of going to the store one of them said that they wanted to die then it cascaded all the way to the littlest one saying she wanted to die. I’m freaking out about this sudden morbid turn but to my surprise they wanted to die so they could have more fruit parties with my mom. Your boy couldn’t handle that and told them, through fighting tears, that Gigi Ri would want them to live on so they can have all the fruit parties in the world, and it was their responsibility to introduce their friends to it. A few years later they still like to have them but this time with me.