Yesterday was the Celebration of Life service for my mother-in-law.
It was way more than I expected and, if my brain wasn’t completely fried by the afternoon’s end, I’d likely have tossed this blog out the window and started fresh.
But, my brain was completely fried so just a few tweaks to the intro.
The short version? Jeannie’s Celebration of Life was beautiful. It was filled with endless stories that showed me just how loved she was by her community. It also showed me how much love Jeannie poured back into every single person she met.
Well, almost every single person. My mother-in-law and I had a complicated relationship. I’ll unpack that later.
The past three weeks have been filled with moments in which I finally started getting to know my mother-in-law. Her Celebration of Life was not about sadness but about pure joy–both the joy within her and the joy that she radiated to others. There was also laughter. So. Much. Laughter. As each of the speakers told their favorite “Jeannie” story, the hundreds of attendees would burst into another round of laughter.
I did not speak at the Celebration of Life. I wasn’t sure what I would say. Our relationship was complicated. But laughter? Yes. Like so many others, I also had a favorite Jeannie story.
When I published What to Expect When You Weren’t Expecting, I had absolutely no idea that S*** Nuggets would be the story that every single reader fell madly in love with. It was also the story that had produced the most “should we or shouldn’t we?” debates on inclusion within the book. We’d pull it out and then go back to it every single time because it was just so funny.
I still have no idea if my mother-in-law ever read the book, let alone the S*** Nuggets story. My goodness, I wanted to ask so many times! She didn’t love that I was a writer nor that, as a non-fiction writer, my family often took the lead as a topic. But, my goodness, I wanted so badly to tell her that the S*** Nuggets had turned her into a minor celebrity.
As we wrap up three weeks of shock, denial, sadness, laughter, nostalgia, and a massive celebration of my mother-in-law’s life, I thought a revisit to S*** Nuggets would be the perfect way to take a whole lot of laughter straight into our next chapter.
There is a strong possibility she would disagree.
Our relationship was complicated. Enjoy.
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