How Not To Be An Awful Mother-in-Law (I think)

My son is one lucky fellow.

All in one day - a Monday no less - we suffered through the one year mark since the death of my 16-year-old stepdaughter and my son was accepted to graduate school. The extreme gulf between the emotions of those two events is all the more vast when you consider the fact that it is a miracle my son lived beyond his teens. Monday was an exhausting day. Roller coasters can wear you out even though you're not doing anything but sitting there going along for the ride. 

Adding to the stress/tiredness is the fact that I've got myself in over my head with obligations for my time and that adds to making the dips deeper on that roller coaster. I've gotten good at saying "No" to things I don't want to do, but when it comes to things I'd love to do....oy, I suck at saying "No." Any progress I've made in my life has come from the "Yeses" so I try to cram them all in forgetting that all-nighters are a thing of the past and I am a terrible judge of what I can accomplish in any given period of time.

And, then there's the frustration of suffering from American extremism - the kind where you feel like you have to be the -est of anything and everything in order to count at all. You have to be the richest, prettiest, smartest, thinnest or innovativest. Yeah, I don't think that's a word at all, but, you get it, right? I mean you can't even just be the wonderfulest by doing non-profit work anymore. You've got to have a dashboard that shows how miraculous the work is. Try measuring the value of play in an infographic!

Done venting yet?

There is one thing that I really, really love being and hope that I'm more than ok at, and that is being a not-awful mother-in-law. I feel a little creepy writing this because it smacks a little of manipulation, so let me dance around it a bit until I figure out what I'm trying to say.

One of the dearest things to me is my son. For decades it was just the two of us. I left his father (he calls him "the sperm donor") with a black eye and an 18-month-old on my hip when I snuck out of the house and hopped a plane from Richmond to Atlanta. No child support. No rich uncle. Just us. And it was great. I loved being a mom to this kid (still do). He was all boy - sports, stitches galore, climbing too high, falling, but he was a sweetheart, too. One Mother's Day when he was four or five, and outdoors in the neighborhood was still a safe place to play, he saw a neighbor preparing to throw away a 2/3-dead flower arrangement. My son asked if he could have it and brought the flowers to me, his Mom. They were the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen in my life. Can you imagine?

Eventually, the little boy who was like no other in his wonderfulness got overrun by hormones, a typhoon of anger at the long-absent father or S.D., peer pressure and a wild streak. We entered into the dark years. I'll spare you those details, but let me just say that  eventually that hellion became an inspiration as he dug himself out of the hole he had dug himself into. One foot in front of the other, occasionally two steps back, and now he is graduating from college next month and starting graduate school right after that.

When I get caught in those circuitous ruts in my brain and can't climb out I think about my son and the force of will and character he used to turn his life around.

Which brings me back to my daughter-in-law and how not to be an awful mother-in-law. And, that is largely by focusing on my ever-increasing love for her and for the gratitude I feel for her having come into my son's life, and thus, mine. This woman is not only drop-dead gorgeous and smart (a PhD, no less), but she loves my son, has helped him learn how to learn, I am betting she stands up to him in a fight, and she has given him two sons who are without a doubt the best, amazingest, funniest, adorablest, most remarkablest children you have ever seen in your life.

And, that's no American extremism. In this case, it is just the way it is.