With Mother’s Day approaching, I’m sharing some adapted reflections I wrote years ago in the first year of Mama’s Empty Nest.
I first became a mother 45 minutes before midnight the night before Mother’s Day. What a wonderful gift I received when our first child was born on Mother’s Day that May.
I soon realized that if I aspired to be a good mother to my newly born offspring and those to come later, I certainly had good role models – my own mother and my mother-in-law – and both were born in the same month as Mother’s Day.
My husband’s mother was the first born in May and when her birthday passed by recently, I thought of her even though she’s been gone for such a long time.
She influenced my life in a wonderful way. Often when I remember her I wonder, “Did I tell her enough how much I appreciated her? Did she realize how much she meant to me?”
She welcomed me into her life with open arms. I can’t remember one time when we had words of disagreement. She only offered me approval and affection and always seemed genuinely glad to see me, hug me tightly and kiss my cheek.
She was my mother-in-law. When I hear others criticize or complain about their mothers-in-law, I cringe. I honestly never had those kinds of opinions about the mother of my husband. She never gave me reason to.
She didn’t interfere with our lives or decisions in any negative way. She didn’t offer advice unless we asked for it. She was a thoughtful, quiet, and unassuming lady who treated me with great kindness. And I think she loved me like a daughter.
When we visited my husband’s parents, my elderly mother-in-law was excited. She stocked her pantry with food she knew we liked, and she loved to cook breakfast for us each day.
She treated us to our favorite things and enjoyed visiting other relatives with us. She cried when we arrived for a visit, and she would weep again when we departed.
She greeted the arrival of her grandchildren with great love and pride, taking picture after picture of them (sometimes inadvertently cutting their parents’ heads out of the frame with her camera aim). But she never cut me out of her life. We chatted long-distance by phone often and she eagerly wanted to hear the latest escapades of our lives.
She never forgot a birthday or our anniversary and she was extremely generous. One of the loveliest gifts she ever bestowed on me was a ring. Her ring. It doesn’t hold much monetary value but soars in sentimental worth.
Set in a simple gold band is an opal, a gem I’ve always loved. Purchased by my father-in-law for my husband’s mother shortly after their marriage, the ring adorned her finger for over 55 years.
Once I remarked how lovely it was and apparently, she never forgot that. During one visit, she surprised me by confiding she wanted me to have her ring. And shortly after my father-in-law passed away, my dear mother by marriage, presented the ring to me. I have treasured it ever since.
But more than that worn ring, I treasured her. How could I not love the hands that lovingly held and nurtured my beloved one? How could I not respect and honor the mother who guided that little boy to become the outstanding man he became, who took him to Sunday School and church to learn more about the God he serves?
Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: “Men are what their mothers made them.” To not love my mother-in-law seemed equal to not loving my husband. She treated me as a much-loved member of her family, the daughter she never had since she was the mother of all sons. And I loved her back.
The last time I spoke with her before she passed away, we talked briefly on the phone. Even though she was very ill, her concern was for us. “How are the kiddies?” she asked. And I related the latest news of her grandchildren. The last thing she asked me that day was “When are you coming home?”
“We’ll come see you soon,” I assured her. But it was too late. The next day she went home to be with the Lord.
To this day, a quarter of a century later, when I catch a faint scent of Chantilly perfume wafting by me, I always think of my mother-in-law as it was her favorite cologne.
Almost 15 years after her passing, I became a mother-in-law myself and I fervently hoped to follow in my own sweet mother-in-law’s footsteps. She lovingly demonstrated with her words and deeds what a blessing a mother-in-law can and should be. Those are the lessons she taught me.
“We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.” ~ Goethe
I lost my own mother just a few months after my mother-in-law died 25 years ago. If she were still alive for her May birthday, she’d be over 100 years old. I imagine my mother was an ultimate surprise when she was born to my grandparents after 19 years of marriage and no children. She surely was the apple of their eye as their only child.
She certainly was the apple of mine. Washington Irving said it well when he wrote: “A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.”
I loved and admired my mother so much, it’s difficult to express in words. I watched her with awe and respect, especially in her last year of life as she bravely and without complaint battled the cancer that was taking her body captive.
Mom was one of the strongest, most determined people I’ve ever met; she had a feisty spirit, and she was fun (ask any of her grandchildren!). She loved God, her family, and her home. She was happiest when she was whipping up goodies in the kitchen and watching her loved ones enjoy her home cooking.
Crafts, sewing projects, quilting, crocheting – all right up her alley. Any ideas to enhance her home or anything she could make with her own hands to give as a gift caught her attention – just one of the ways she demonstrated her love. She especially enjoyed planting flowers in her garden and watching her six grandchildren flower as well.
When I was a squirrelly teenager, my mother suffered through menopause. The combination wasn’t exactly compatible, so we butted heads often. Sometimes, she just made me so mad, I would stomp up the stairs to my room and cry my eyes out. And I know I made her just as angry. But not once, did we ever stop loving one another.
As an adult, I realized first-hand the stresses my mom endured. But I sadly recall wounding my mom one time during my teenage years. After yet another ridiculous battle of words I waged with her, I had shouted, “You don’t love me and you never did!”
I’ve never forgotten the look of horror on her face as she recoiled from my venomous words. She seemed to wilt as she slowly sat down, and tears quietly streamed down her cheeks.
I don’t believe I have ever regretted words more than those ugly ones I flung at her that day. The power to reduce my mother to tears did not give me satisfaction, instead it made me realize what a spoiled brat I was, and I never hurled hurtful words like that to my mother again.
But through those trying years, Mom never stopped encouraging me, giving me good advice when I needed it and always loving the not so lovable me. She urged me to be the first person in our family to attend college.
Without admonition, she expected me to try my hardest at whatever I endeavored. I remember many late summer nights, swaying gently back and forth side by side on the front porch swing, having conversations with Mom about boyfriends, what college life would be like, and dreaming about my future.
Later, I would make my mother cry again. When I married my true love and we loaded our belongings into a U-Haul trailer to move half-way across the country, my mother wept. And every time we visited my parents from our home away from home, she would once again cry each time we said goodbye.
My mom was always my rock. She was the one I turned to for help, to vent, to rail against the injustices of my world because I knew she was always on my side. And she always knew what to say to pick me up, dust me off, and send me back on my way.
She provided the strong arms of comfort into which I collapsed with hysterical tears in an airport ladies room after sending my military husband off to a foreign land for a year’s tour of duty. Pregnant with our first child and saying goodbye to my husband, who would miss the birth of that child, was the most heart-wrenching task I had ever endured.
And it was Mom who held me tight, rocked me in her arms even while she cried with me, and whispered in my ear, “You’ve got to think about this new little life you’re carrying inside of you. You’ve got to be strong for the baby.”
I didn’t want to be strong. But I learned to be. And that’s one of the lessons I learned from my mother who portrayed strength every day, even as she lay dying all those years later.
I still miss my mother terribly and as I read back over these words I wrote years ago, tears still spring to my eyes.
But I can almost hear her whisper, “You’ve got to think about your own family, your children, (and now, your grandchildren). You’ve got to love them and stay strong for them. That’s what a good mother does.”
Happy Mother’s Day in heaven, Mom and Mom-in-law. Give Jesus a hug for me.
“I miss thee, my Mother! Thy image is still the deepest impressed on my heart.” ~Eliza Cook
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Mama's Empty Nest 