It wasn’t long after my mother-in-law died unexpectedly that my husband sat across the room from me and said, “I’m really surprised to see you sad. I don’t understand why you’re not dancing around and singing, “Ding-dong, the witch is dead.””
To be honest, I thought the same. He wasn’t the only one surprised by the overwhelming sadness I felt when my mother-in-law died. My grief, perhaps, was amplified because it came with a huge side of longing. I suppose it is normal, when someone dies, to think of all those moments you’d like to change or to wish for more time to fix an awkward relationship.
Awkward? Understatement, table for one.
If I could sum up the relationship between me and my mother-in-law, I’d say it was doomed from before it even started–though I had no idea at the time. Until the day Jeannie died, I really did believe that she and I would eventually form a positive bond. And, when Jeannie died, so did that dream. I have heard more than once, and always with a wink, that my mother-in-law would rather have died than share any fault in our tumultuous relationship or take part in its repair.
I believe that as well (wink, wink).
Awkward? You have no idea. Our last interaction was quite awful as “berate your daughter-in-law” again bubbled up on Jeannie’s to-do list. This was not new. For over a decade, she hosted an annual Come-to-Jesus-Jeannie meeting in which she’d beg my husband to remove me from her precious grandchildren’s lives. Annual? If we were lucky. It wasn’t uncommon to hear this several times per year or month or week, depending on her state.
The difference this time–the time just before she checked out of this conversation permanently– was that I finally stood up for myself. Though it turned out to be our last moment together, I have no regrets. She left this earth with a vision, albeit unpleasant, of me fighting for my place in my family.
My family. Mine.
My mother-in-law simply could not accept that her family also included me. She could never understand why these people (her son and two grandchildren) loved me so much. She could never see who we were together and that together we were all so much better than apart.
One of the first things I did when I moved to Virginia to join my instant family was to invite Jeannie to lunch. I knew that she was incredibly protective of her grandchildren and I wanted her to know how much I respected that (and I did). I wanted her to know that I was not a threat and that I genuinely hoped to build a mother/daughter foundation with her. I was also scared shitless and knew that she could be my best resource as I grew into the role of stepmother.
I was scared shitless and, at the time, had no idea my role of stepmother would actually become one of actual mother within months of my move.
I was not ashamed to admit that I had no idea what I was doing nor was I embarrassed to ask for her help–until she made me feel ashamed by declined my request for a regular lunch date. Thankfully, I was too deep into the weeds to worry about it. I was also incredibly naive, hearing her “No, Thank-you” as a definite “Maybe.” From day one, I believed it would only be a matter of time until Jeannie came to love me.
As a Master of Hindsight, I now see that the uphill battle was one I would never win and that my time would have been better spent by giving up immediately.
Instead, I kept digging in, hoping that she would “see” me.
My mother-in-law also dug in, determined to build wall after wall. She had a stockpile of wedges that she inserted between my husband and me, my stepdaughter and me, my stepson and me, and even my husband’s ex-wife and me. Her favorite words of encouragement included “They’d have been better off if you’d just stayed in North Carolina,” or “I just don’t know how Rich could have married someone like you.”
She even once demanded that my husband pick–he could either have a relationship with her or with me. We lovingly call that moment Grandmageddon. It occurred just after we celebrated seven years together as a family and were finally reaping the benefits of endless hours in the counselors’ chairs. Jeannie offered this demand within earshot of our children–perhaps intentionally. The request was so out of line that it didn’t even phase me but, that she did it in front of my children? Well, that was a bit too much.
I knew then that I had been fighting an impossible-to-win battle.
There was freedom in that realization.
Throughout the past five months, as we have leafed through my mother-in-law’s life, the depth of her dislike for me has been further revealed. I really did have no chance. I wish I’d known that years ago. I could have invested my energy into so many other things.
In the year leading up to her death I, again, thought we were turning a corner. Jeannie had spent months with debilitating back pain and I had spent those months helping her with errands or stopping by for coffee and company. She was becoming a smaller version of herself, trapped at home as my compassion for her grew. Still, she couldn’t help getting in that one last barb, lashing out about my unwelcome place in the care of her grandchildren.
Why did I keep going back for more?
I suppose part of it was my quest to copy and paste the relationship that I had with my mother onto the one I had with my mother-in-law. In April, my mother transitioned to hospice care and I instantly lost the ability to communicate with her regularly. I was desperate to fill that lonely void and thought, maybe, my mother-in-law could finally slide into that role. That was all I ever wanted, you see. When I moved from North Carolina to Virginia, it was my mother whom I missed the most. My mother and I still talked every single day until mid-April. It was also mid-April when my mother-in-law became housebound.
Surely, the universe was throwing me a bone.
As we packed up Jeannie’s life, I realized that I’d never stood a chance.
At the Celebration of Life, I was stunned to hear over and over, while meeting members of her beloved church family, that many had no idea that Jeannie’s son had remarried. I would giggle a bit and say, “Yes, he remarried…twelve years ago.” I was stunned, but not really surprised.
Why wasn’t I prancing around singing Ding-dong, the witch is dead??
I supposed because, just like so many others, I never really saw my mother-in-law as a witch. I saw her as a puzzle that I desperately wanted to solve. I longed for her to see just how happy our family had become. I thought often of how happy she could be with us if she could just leave her arbitrary dislike of me behind.
Why wasn’t I prancing around singing Ding-dong, the witch is dead??
Because I really and truly believe that, someday, she would lean into our family unit rather than continuing to try to pull it apart.