When they met online four years ago, Rick West and Lisa Maciejewski had an immediate connection. They both lost a spouse to cancer and had preteen children who shared a passion for athletics.
The story of how they formed one big, happy family is a testament to how people can persevere through pain and heartbreak and find new strength.
Rick is the biological father of Central High School senior football and basketball standout Adam West and his younger sister, Alex, a junior who excels in track and field for the Lady Cats.
The West family is originally from Lubbock, Texas, but when Rick and Lisa started dating and the relationship blossomed, they decided to move to San Angelo to be in the same town as Lisa and her son, Jeff, a senior standout on the Bobcats' golf team.
"We dated for seven months before we moved here," Rick, who also has an adult daughter, told the San Angelo Standard-Times. "But we knew pretty quickly that we had a good relationship and great possibilities. We made a decision about the end of the year (in 2012) for us to move here.
"She was in a position where she couldn't move. We moved here to co-mingle families and get the kids in school and get them plugged into friends and the environment and get ready for the next year."
Lisa's husband, Jeff Maciejewski, died of brain cancer in 2009 and Rick's wife, Robin, succumbed to colon cancer the same year.
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"Already right there, you have pretty much a common bond and a knowledge of what each person went through," Lisa said of her connection with Rick. "We were both single parents of preteens, so we definitely had a lot in common there, just talking about the kids and what they were going through and what their hopes and dreams were. It just was a great fit for us."
The Wests had to make the decision about leaving their hometown of Lubbock.
"Rick wanted the change at first," said Lisa, who also has two adult daughters. "I know that the kids weren't exactly thrilled about it at first. I think they've come around a little bit. Rick was ready for a change and felt that this was a good move for the kids and himself and us."
The West family moved to San Angelo in March 2013 and Rick married Lisa, now Maciejewski-West, seven months later.
Selling his children on the idea of moving wasn't easy initially.
"I definitely wasn't looking forward to it at first," Adam said. "I'd already met some of Jeff's friends, so I wasn't really scared about making friends. I was just scared about leaving all mine behind."
As hard as it was for Adam to leave Lubbock, it was even tougher for his little sister, Alex.
"I'd met Jeff's friends, but I didn't really have any girl friends of my own," she said. "The whole 'new family' thing was a lot harder on me than it was for Adam. It took me probably a year after being here to kind of let myself enjoy it. But I love it now."
It was a smoother transition for Jeff because he didn't have to worry about relocating. He was getting two new siblings through the union, and Jeff said he and Adam have pretty much been best friends since they met.
"It was easy because we have a bunch of similarities with him being an athlete and me being an athlete, and me liking video games and him liking video games," Jeff said.
All three of the children had lived in a single-parent household for four years after their parents died of cancer. Having that in common gave them a strong connection, just like their parents.
"It helped us to be able to have someone in our lives that we could relate to and then joining as a family was awesome for us," Adam said.
All three teenagers exhibited a great deal of strength when they went through the loss of a parent.
"We were definitely forced to grow up a lot faster than we wanted to," said Alex, who inherited her mother's artistic talents and takes photos for the Central yearbook.
Adam said he and his sister didn't know what to do after their mother's passing.
"It's like taking light away from a plant," he said. "It doesn't know how to react. Our dad had to step up and be a father and a mother to us. He had to take on a maternal role for us.
"That was a real shot in the face that you usually don't get until you're 16 or 17. Whenever you lose a parent, it hits you that you're not a little kid."
The losses left a huge void in the lives of Rick, Lisa, Adam, Jeff and Alex. But over time, they were all able to carry on in the wake of something so painful.
"If you have faith and you believe that God takes care of everything, if you love Him and trust Him, it inevitably will happen," Lisa said.
It did challenge the children's faith at times, though.
"I lost my mom when I was 8, and I definitely didn't have the relationship with Christ that I do now," Alex said. "At first, I was just extremely angry with God for taking her from me and leaving us in that situation.
"It strengthened my relationship in Him to help me get through it more than anything."
Her older brother said it had a similar effect on him.
"It definitely made me stronger," Adam said. "It grew us as a family . because we didn't have that mother figure to fall back on anymore. We had to turn to our dad a lot more than we did beforehand. Alex and I grew a lot, lot closer, especially after we moved here."
The shared experiences definitely eased the integration of the two households.
"In all of my wildest dreams, I never would have imagined that I would meet somebody who also had kids who also lost a spouse and who also had kids who were athletes. Not only did it work out, but it worked out perfectly for us and for our situation."
And it was never a situation of Lisa trying to replace Adam and Alex's mother, or Rick trying to replace Jeff's father.
"A triangle doesn't fit in a circular hole," Adam said. "If you're expecting to get exactly what was gone, then you're going to be disappointed. Lisa's not my mom and my dad's not Jeff's dad. If we were expecting that the whole time from here on out, we'd just be missing our mom even more and be disappointed.
"I couldn't ask for a better stepmother than Lisa. I'm extremely happy with what happened."
The teens' enthusiasm for sports was a less painful factor in growing family bonds.
On Friday nights during the fall, the family loves to watch Adam do his thing on the football field — and it's not hard to spot No. 16, a 6-foot-8, 220-pounder who has helped the Bobcats secure a brilliant 4-0 start in 2016. He has already verbally committed to Harvard.
"There's nothing like watching your son catch a football in the end zone and score a touchdown," Rick said.
And that's something that Adam's mother never got to enjoy.
"I started playing after she passed," said Adam, who was a first-team all-district wide receiver as a junior and is off to another great start in 2016. "It's kind of weird in that sense. Everything's happened so fast these past few years."
Adam is more than a foot taller than his father, so Rick is accustomed to hearing all the jokes about that.
"There's all kinds of questions and comments and one of them is, 'You adopted him, right?'" Rick said. "A lot of people thought that initially when we moved here. I just told them it was a combination of good genes."
Jeff gives a lot of credit to his late father for helping turn him into an elite golfer, and he knows his dad is looking down from above with pride.
And even though he never knew Adam and Alex's mother, he's thinking that she must be happy with how things worked out as well.
"Oh yeah," said Jeff, who will play NCAA Division I golf at Sam Houston State University next year. "I know (my dad's) smiling up in heaven, and I know they're all smiling, looking at how successful we've all become.
"When we started high school, I don't think either (Adam or I) planned on becoming as strong of athletes as we ended up being. I know my dad gave me that ability, and I'm sure their mom supported them through everything they did."
Jeff had some incredible results during his busy schedule of summer golf. He played in five tournaments, including a qualifying event for the U.S. Jr. Amateur. After shooting 66-71 — 137, he missed making the prestigious tourney by one shot and ended up as an alternate.
The Bobcat senior also won the Legends Junior Golf Tour Lanny Wadkins Championship in Prosper.
The family isn't able to see Jeff play in golf tournaments a whole lot, except for Lisa, who is now able to travel with him around the state and to different parts of the country.
It wasn't always that way.
Before he was diagnosed with brain cancer, Jeff's father was fully disabled in 2005 with Multiple System Atrophy, which is similar to Multiple Sclerosis.
"Our whole existence was centered around doctors' appointments and his good days and his bad days," Lisa said. "In a lot of ways, the kids took a back seat during that time."
Lisa wasn't able to go see one of her older daughters compete in swimming at Central like she would have liked because she was busy taking care of her husband. She was glad that he lived long enough to see his daughter graduate and got to see her move into her dormitory at SMU.
She's so appreciative that things are different for her now.
"That's why for me this is the grand prize," Lisa said. "For God to give that kind of a gift to me to have kids that I can enjoy their high school years and go out and watch them play and do that 'soccer mom' kind of stuff that I couldn't do with my daughter, it's such a blessing.
"Every time I drive up and see those yard signs (of what sports the teenagers play), I'm so proud."
Alex was a dual-sport athlete until last year, when she gave up volleyball to concentrate on track and field, where she runs the hurdles and throws the shot put. Track is something she has in common with Adam, who is a high jumper for Central.
All three children are 'A' students, but Jeff quickly points out that Alex "is just naturally smarter than both of us," while Adam nods his head in agreement.
The boys are both in the top 20 percent of their class, and Alex is in the top 10 percent.
In addition to being active in athletics, Adam, Jeff and Alex are also involved at PaulAnn Baptist Church, where they're all part of Young Life, a Christian ministry.
"Sports is, of course, a big thing that keeps us together as a family," Lisa said. "But our faith does also. Each kid has a different sport, but from a family standpoint, I'd have to say that our faith and church has really been the thing that has bonded us together."
Something else that bonded the family together was their mission trip to Guatemala this past summer, which gave the three teenagers a greater appreciation for how fortunate they are.
"That was amazing," Adam said. "It was definitely eye opening to see how little (the people in Guatemala) have and just how happy they are in general. We have so much and we just complain all the time as a society in general."
Rick says he hopes that after all that Adam, Alex and Jeff have been through in their young lives, they won't take things for granted and will appreciate what they have every day.
"We're proud of all our kids for their sports accomplishments, of course, but even more so for their hard work in academics and the kind of people they are," Rick said. "They care about other people."
The family talks about Adam maybe playing in the NFL someday or Jeff playing on the PGA Tour. And who knows? Maybe Alex can run in the Olympics.
"I've kind of learned not to put limitations on things like that because I never would have thought that (Adam would) be where he's at now," Rick said. "Do we look at that and think about that? We do. (And) we think about Jeff being on the PGA Tour."
The West-Maciejewski family knows from experience that anything is possible.
