You Think You Know A Person

Thirty years ago, I met a teenaged boy that would one day become my husband. (Thirty!? Wait – I’m still only 26 years old, aren’t I?) About a year later, I dated that teenaged boy and briefly got to know his family. I would have described them as…odd. Nice, loving, but something was just “off” for my oh-so-mature-and-all-knowing 15 year old mind. The relationship didn’t last too terribly long largely because my oh-so-mature-and-all-knowing self was a tad bit of a jealous beast. Said teenaged boy thought that was stifling and he broke it off, claiming it was God’s will, as he instantaneously fell into the arms of another oh-so-mature-and-all-knowing 14 year old who also was a tad bit of a jealous beast.

At least he was consistent.

While we dated other people, I was pretty active in our church where this teenaged boy’s mother was a charter member, meaning, she’d been there the day the organization was built. She was one of those “church ladies” that easily slips into a stereotype – dressed and styled behind-the-times, doted unnecessarily over her son and anyone close to him (aka, the tad bit jealous beast of the Other Girlfriend™), cooked very Depression Era meals for church functions – ones full of canned goods, boxed ingredients and convenience foods, and tended to “tut tut” at the shenanigans of the active youth group of which Future Husband™, Other Girlfriend™ and I were a part. Yes, in church, children were to be seen and not heard. She lent her voice to the choir, made meal and after meal to the infirm and grieving, and made sure that things stayed exactly as they’d always been, exactly as they always should be. I was fond of her, but only because she was Future Husband’s™ mother. She was occasionally hard to communicate with, stuck in the 1950′s and really, just not my cup o’ tea.

Then, something amazing happened. Future Husband™ and I reunited. We were thrilled. We felt alive, invigorated, flighty, buoyant…all those things 16 and 18 year-olds feel when love comes knocking on their door. But, there was a hitch. Future Husband’s™ mother seemed to prefer Other Girlfriend™. I was devastated, completely confused. And, being who I am, I was determined to prove to her that I was the better choice.

I’m not sure that drive to prove myself ever completely left me. Even after Other Girlfriend™ and I decided no man was worth coming between two friends and we too reunited. Even after life came crashing down around Other Girlfriend™ after some bad choices, bad timing and bad circumstances took her to the far side of Indiana with a new husband and a new baby. Even after Future Husband™ became Husband and later, Father of My Children, Her Grandchildren. I was never afraid of her, but I always felt like I had something to prove.

And it was all from me, I guarantee you.

Now Doris, my mother-in-law never changed. She remained very behind-the-times when it came to fashion, personal style, home decorating and…well, just about anything. Her meals remained Depression Era, sans seasoning, freshness or (I’m sorry, Husband) taste. She continued to buy her son briefs at Christmas until I patiently reminded her that his undergarments were no longer her responsibility. “A man shall leave his mother and a woman leave her home, Doris – we’ve got his skivvies covered, thanks.” She remained oblivious that Saturday 9 am phone calls to the newlyweds were highly unwelcome. I had to, shall we say, “educate” her on how to be a mother-in-law. How to be a mother of a fully grown, fully responsible and capable man. Mother of a man who wanted to make love to his new wife on the one day a week we got to enjoy the luxury of an all day morning.

And, as time progressed, she and I continued our lessons. But, as time progressed, she wasn’t the only student. Maybe you could say, we became mentors, teaching each other how to best love the man that she raised to be the love of my life. I had to remind her that not ALL girls love pink and lace and flowers and doll-babies. Our daughter marched(es) to the beat of a different drummer. She didn’t like those lessons, but eventually, after a few Christmas gift faux pas with Hello Kitty pajamas and the like, she understood that Abby…was Abby. She had to remind me that just because she held babies in an odd, stiff, visibly unsoothing way that her grand-babies loved her anyway and were very well cared for when she was in charge. That I could leave my babies with her and while they probably didn’t get the nap I would prefer, or spoon-fed in a way that would make me twitch, they came home not only in one piece, but with the building blocks of a grandparent/child relationship many would envy.

Abby and Grandma, circa 1991-ish

Time marched on and my relationship with Doris marched right along with it. We’d have moments of closeness when I took her to a lovely little tea shop for Mother’s Day and we’d have moments where things just weren’t…well, they just weren’t. Full disclosure? On a normal day, she annoyed me. Yes, there, I said it. The woman drove me crazy twelve ways to Sunday. I purposely named my children in such a way that she couldn’t put a “y” on the end of their name, either because it was already there, or it was so clunky with it, she wouldn’t bother. My husband, for the longest time, was “Aley”. To this day, it makes me twitch.

So, maybe in full disclosure, I need to admit I was a bit of a bitch. I was so far superior, you see, growing and changing with the times, able to shift when life blew a nasty wind, raising my children to be fun, serious, wild AND crazy – and definitely both heard and seen. I decorated my home better, I dressed better, I most definitely cooked better and, well, yes. I was a better woman. *nods* Kind of ugly when you put it out in print like that…

And that ugly attitude of mine would remain…until July 17, 2009. A supposedly innocuous night that turned on its end when we got the call that Doris had been in the emergency room the entire day with vomiting, stomach pain and what would end up being a twisted colon and a cancerous mass therein. That night, as my husband, his brother, their father and their pastor sat in the surgical waiting room, we all privately knew that she wasn’t going to make it. She was a chronic asthmatic and even the doctor warned us that pulling her out of surgery would probably be harder than the surgery itself. We’ve since confessed that we all sat there and planned her funeral. This was it. The woman who raised my husband, loved my children and quietly put up with my superiority complex was going to die that night.

Except, she didn’t. She was pulled off ventilation immediately after surgery and even scolded Husband and Brother-in-Law that they were out too late if they were to work in the morning. She healed in ICU, she healed further in a nursing home and voila. She was home.

Problem was, that was only the beginning of 3 months of health problems. Three months of sitting in hospital waiting rooms privately planning her funeral. Three months of “she’s coming home!” to “she’s back in.” Three months of stubbornness I would have NEVER associated with my mother-in-law. Stubbornness that got her through two major surgeries and one next-to-death run in with dehydration. Stubbornness that also kept her from getting the social services she and her husband needed to keep her well and to keep her family at peace that she was eating properly and her husband was resting properly. It was a three month battle of wills, of patience, of trial and of suffering.

But, after 30 years of knowing her and 23 years of being her daughter-in-law, I learned more about her than I ever knew before.

1. While she might have remained fond of Other Girlfriend™ (as did I), I was her daughter-in-law, the love of her baby boy’s life and the mother of two of her four favorite (read “only”) grandchildren. I was just as stubborn as she, so when she was so dehydrated they couldn’t find a vein for IV’s and nutrition, my hand was the hand she held and squeezed to get her through. Before leaving her family for her first surgery, my eyes were the eyes she stared into and the hands she clasped and said, “I’m so scared.” When her doting husband was about to drive her to drink, I was the one who was asked, “Do you want a roommate?” Hell, I was the one who was told about the hot doctor during her first hospital stay! “There he is, there he is, Heidi. Go…go look!”
2. While her fashion was old, her house was dated, her cooking was tasteless, she knew love. Yes, she showed it differently than I. Yes, she received it differently than I. But she knew it. The love she offered and the love she received are what pushed her through those three months of illness, recovery, pain and frustration. And that love? Is what would be the foundation of her new title at the hospital. Rockstar™. Eighty one years old and she, my friends, was a Rockstar. Even a year ago, I could have never said that with a straight face.
3. While I took her stubborn ways, her inability to allow my children to become teenagers and adults, her reluctancy to let time mold and shape others as a passive aggressive maneuver to keep control of everything around her, I realize now that it was just her. It was how she lived, how she loved. And ultimately, it was how she died. She was made of steel.

She never wanted to go to a nursing home and as time went, that was looking inevitable. As it was, she died in the hospital surrounded by her three most favorite men – her husband and two sons. She needed a rest. Her husband and sons needed a rest. And, her body was betraying her. I’m sure, that in her own stubborn way, she was completely in charge of the end of her life, slipping quietly away, no drama, no scene-stealing, no bells and whistles…making sure no one was inconvenienced at this new passage.

While I probably won’t miss the bland food, the out-dated clothes, the horrible Christmas presents, the fussing and needless worrying and “dithering” as I liked to call it, I will miss her. Her smile when we’d visit, her nervous tick of a conversation filler, “And that…and so…”, her thick Jersey accent, her birthday phone calls and Easter chocolate crosses. I’ll miss the goofy grin that was always on my son’s face when he hugged her – even still at age 15 – and I’ll miss the sweet, trying-to-be-patient smile my daughter would give when Grandma would miss the mark on who Abby really is. I’ll miss the phone calls before vacation and the phone calls of relief when we’d return b/c dontcha know…driving is DANGEROUS!

I’ll miss Doris. I could never call her “Mom,” as I have one of those who does such a smashing job that no one else gets that title, but calling her Doris was never meant as a slight. It’s who she was. Who she will always be. A loving woman who cared for her family and helped them become who they needed to be so that the world would continue to love.

RIP, Doris 5-28-1928 to 10-17-2009

I’m sad I feel like I spent so much time saying, “she never gets to KNOW us,” that I just might have been the one missing the mark. She was steely, stubborn, strong and bright.

Exactly what any woman wishes to be.