in-law issues

Send Your Cards and Letters


With Mother’s Day approaching I was struck by the impulse to send Will’s mother a grandmother’s card from Katy and some pictures of her. She had asked for pictures in the letter she’d sent me at Christmas time. The one where she all but said she still hated me though the Christian in her could only forgive me. The length of time between her request and my impulse was not influenced by the less than pious tone of her only letter – only form of contact really – with me since the infamous phone call of the fall of 2006. The one where she’d found God and wanted us to exchange forgiveness. That was 9 months after Will died and the only contact she’d made herself. She had preferred to conduct her business with me through emissaries but I had put an end to that at Will’s service and informed all her lapdogs that I wasn’t talking to her “people” anymore as she knew my number and presumably my name as well as being able to dial a phone herself. Have I ever mentioned that she and I don’t quite mesh? Everything is personal with her even when it has nothing to do with her at all. She sees slights and outrages between every line written or uttered and no one has suffered the pangs of neglect and loneliness as she has. She could be my youngest sister’s long lost twin. She is the incarnation of every victim mama I hand-held through their child’s middle school experience when I was a teacher. I have limited patience for such things.

Lately though I have come to the conclusion that it isn’t much of an effort to send her photos every few months. She has been sending cards fairly regularly since Christmas and though Katy hasn’t shown the slightest interest when I have given them to her and explained who they were from (she remembers quite well who her paternal grandmother is and is her mother’s daughter when it comes to shrugging things off). there may come a time when she might want to correspond. Visits at this point are not under active consideration. (Truthfully, Rob can’t even prevail upon me to be much more civil and if he can’t – no one can.)

The card I chose was as generic as they come. Not a word about fond memories or love or affection. Just happy mother’s day grandma. Very matter of fact. Though interestingly warmer than the tour guide chain letter I typed up to describe the pictures events and tell a bit about Katy. Rob noted that there was no greeting or salutation even. I printed a second copy to send to Will’s aunt. No card there though.

“Not signing them even?”

“Do I have to?”

I find my former in-laws to be almost as much a burden as they were during Will’s illness when they could never find time or inclination to help out on the rare occasions I bothered to ask (because the answer was always – “Sorry but we’re busy”). I wish I could neglect them completely but as indifferent as I am to the idea of them, I do think they are interested, a bit anyway, in their deceased brother’s only son’s daughter. A bit.

My mother-in-law is living in a nursing home now. I found this out from my best friend who works for a care service that has been providing in-home care for MIL until recently. Apparently MIL can no longer live on her own due to her health and has no family or friends to help. This can only mean she has finally used up everyone she knows. People only mean as much to her as she can get out of them. I know that Will would be disappointed that I can’t get past the past and help her out, so I will do this photo/update thing to assuage that – not guilt because I truly don’t care about the woman at all – feeling he would be upset with me.

Everything will go into the mail in the morning. It might be there by the weekend. Sending mail from here to there is an imprecise thing.

Will’s Mother


Will’s mother was widowed at thirty-three. She chose a much different path to her now than I have chosen to mine. Nevertheless, she has had an impact on the way I view widowhood and grief and it could be said that I have gone the way I have because of her in some small way.

She has never been allowed much of a role in Katy’s life. Despite what she thinks, and tells people, Will and I made this decision together before Katy was even born. Had things turned out differently, she would be just as marginalized today as she in fact is. I remind myself of this when I things like today’s Christmas card arrive that Will knew her very well and though he loved her, he didn’t much approve of her choices past and present.

About eight months after Will died, his mother decided to resume contact with Katy – not me – Katy, who was four. She would send holiday cards and drop the occasional gift off at the door when we were not home. The cards were addressed to Katy and written to me. They were full of venom even though she had professed to have forgiven me for all I did to her during Will’s illness. It’s funny to me that for some people finding Jesus is often at the loss of civility, but that’s another post for another day perhaps.

I ignored her attempts. Katy refused to acknowledge having a second grandmother at that point (though she knew she did) as a result of things that happened during the hospice months, and I wasn’t going to push it. My mother-in-law knew what she had to do in order to gain entry into our lives and wasn’t about to. At this point I think I should point out that when she found out she was going to be a grandmother at last (we’d been trying for two and a half years and she blamed me for our lack of success), her first response was that now she could finally wear a t-shirt that said “grandma” just like all the other women her age that she knew. Katy, like Will before her, was to be an accessory.

Since no one in Will’s family ever called or stopped by or checked up on us in any way past the first two or so months after he died, I didn’t feel obligated to keep them up to date on our life, or my personal life. So, they didn’t know about Rob. When he appeared or when we got serious or the engagement or our plans to move Katy and I to Canada or our marriage. In fact it was mid-August or maybe even September already when I sent out letters informing them of our marriage and our location. Will’s oldest uncle and his aunt on his dad’s side were quite nice. Will’s mother? She didn’t take it very well. At least that is what I heard.

Today her Christmas card arrived. I had asked her not to send cards to Katy with messages intended for me anymore. Her card was just the message printed inside and her signature, and then out dropped a letter for me. It was as cruel as she could make it without directly violating her new-found faith in the Lord. The lord, as we all know, is big on form and light on intent. Her opening line was:

“I could bash you for what you have done to me and Will but I forgave you for all of that and I am at peace.”

Rob told me to just forget about it. Don’t let it have power. What she thinks I did to her is of little import to me. I know what kind of person she is and this is typical of that type of person, but that she implied that I did things to Will that hurt him is a bit harder to put aside. I know she is angry. She feels that life has cheated her time and again and never gives a thought to her part in the misery that defines her life now, but still. I feel often that I failed Will even when I know I didn’t and I hate that she can push this button. I will put this card and the letter away with the others. Katy can have them when she is old enough to read and understand them.

Ghosts of Christmas Past


My widowed sister-in-law is here for the week with her two teenagers and we have had a couple of lengthy conversations about widowhood. Two themes emerged in respect to myself. First of all there is the ever annoying comments on my inner strength and determination which render me “amazing” and which I will never really understand I’m afraid. I am not special or amazing though I will concede on strong with the caveat that I see it as my dislike of giving in – I am a more stubborn person than anything else. Then there came the observation that my grief critics are critical because of this tough persona I have. This came during a point in the discussion this morning when I was talking about Will’s mother, extended family and friends. I conceded the point because I had to. It’s completely true that I do not like to admit total strangers into my emotional circle. And I don’t consider blogging to be a portal either. I have friends and good ones who read this blog and comment – some more than others, but the majority of people who read (and it’s not a sizable audience) do so without much interest in me as a person and without commenting. I read few blogs where I don’t comment at least occasionally, even if I don’t a warm and fuzzy relationship with the writer but I have come to regard other people’s lives and struggles as merely different from my own and not a direct reflection on who they are as people necessarily.

But getting back to ghosts. I find that each time I talk/write about my struggles and the residual baggage (as my sister-in-law terms it) that I feel like I have unloaded some and walked away from it. In some respects this as dangerous as leaving bags unattended in a airport because you don’t know who will find it and what the reaction will be or if you have left something of importance behind.

I have been thinking for a while now that perhaps it is time to walk away from blogging. I keep at it because I like writing but don’t know if this is the most productive use of my time and because it is a way for friends to keep up with my life and I have been horrid in the past for keeping in touch, so blogging you might say is my lazy answer to that. Still, it is stealing time away from real writing that needs to be done, and when I say “needs”, I mean I have a stories in my head screaming to be written. It’s funny how conversations can trigger all sorts of seemingly random reactions but this wasn’t isn’t that random at all. This blog, though it is mainly about my journey of the past nine months has me tied a bit to tightly to events that preceded it and it’s time to move farther away. Blogging is not a forward moving thing for me anymore.