Mother-In-Law

          I just spent a week with one of the smartest, funniest, most interesting women on earth – my mother-in-law.

          She and I have a lot in common.  We were both teachers.  We both raised two sons and one daughter.  We like and do a lot of the same things.  Most importantly, we both love the same man: her son; my husband.

          I remember the exact moment I fell in love with HoneyBunch and it has a lot to do with her.

I had just told HB that he wanted more from our relationship than I did, and I couldn’t let it go any further.  This would be our last date, but we would part as friends. In conversation, he started talking about his mother and her fights with both breast and stomach cancer.  He admired her for her strength. She recovered from both but never regained her weight.  At eighty-eight, she still weighs less than 100 lbs and wears a size one. 

Though they do not live in the same state, they make it a point to see each other twice or more a year. HB’s family is big on exercise, and the two of them love to go on long walks together.  If she tired, he would scoop her up in his arms and carry her home. She would protest and giggle but loved the attention.

          I remember looking at him and realizing this was a very loving and kind man and I would be a fool to let him go out of my life.

          She loves when I tell her this story, not because it was the genesis of my love for her son, but because it is proof of how much her grown son still loves her.

          I should be jealous of that but I am not. She is his mother and I am his wife. She raised him to be the amazing man that he is and I get to reap the benefits.