For 10 years I’ve wanted to write about becoming a mother-in-law, about my sons leaving home, leaving me with an empty nest. For 10 years, on multiple occasions, I have sat down to write and just known I wanted to go in 100 different directions, and yet have not had the courage to follow through. And to be completely honest, I haven’t had the wisdom. Sometimes I’ll have amazing conversation with a friend over dinner, and I’ll be just so confident about what it is I want to say, and get home and think to myself…. Nope. Not yet.
And maybe I’m going to get two paragraphs into this blog and quit, only for it to remain an unfinished piece until a decade from now. Only God knows. But here I sit. Fingers on keyboard, once again. Thinking about the thing I want the most to write about, because I don’t think I’m alone in my struggle – and my joy!
The other day my sister forwarded me a letter from a Mom to her son as he was leaving home. I texted her back, “100% accurate,” and I knew… maybe now, or at least maybe soon I will muster up the right words.
So this blog may be just a little note I look back on years from now – there are several of those here for me because this little web site of mine is often times like one of those old-fashioned diaries little girls get for Christmas – the kind with a lock and key so that their deepest secrets, heartaches, or struggles can remain just between them and their “Dear Diary” imaginary friend. Who knows?
Let’s see where this goes…
It’s no secret, because I mention it often – Single Mama here. Divorced when I was seven months pregnant with my youngest son. For the first five months of separation from my then husband, I lived in the basement at my parent’s house with a 2-year-old and a newborn. When Ian was five months old we moved into an adorable mobile home I sunk my blood, sweat, and tears into, and we lived there exactly five years to the day. I worked from home doing medical transcription, which meant neither kiddos spent even five minutes in daycare their entire lives – a blessing most single Mamas don’t get – I know, and I’m grateful. I’ll spare you the boring details of my circumstances, which by the way were really difficult. Thank God for a supportive family.
Once a week I’d bring the kids a “mystery lunch” to school. They really looked forward to that. So did I. Sunday nights we had pajama parties, and stayed up and watched America’s Funniest Home Videos together. Like every parent, I have a million and one of the sweetest memories with my boys. Those days were hard, but they were the best, and they went by way too quickly.
Today when I took my 87-year-old Mom to the grocery store there was a woman trying to get her two small boys into the shopping basket. I saw her frustration, and said to her, “Honey, they will be shaving and chasing girls before you know it,” and we all laughed. And it’s true, even though she is much too busy to give that any serious thought.
The day my son Rory was planning to propose to Holly in the football stands at Chippewa Valley High School, it poured down rain torrentially and sideways (I’m not kidding – it was the storm of all storms). I was on my way to Holly’s parents’ house, and Rory called me very upset about his plans being washed out, literally. When I asked if he had a Plan B, he said no, but that he had to get off the phone. I walked into Holly’s parents’ house just a few minutes later, and he was on the phone discussing a Plan B with Holly’s mom. My heart sunk, and it was on that day that I realized that my little boy who I had sang to and rocked as an infant, and snuggled as a toddler, was about to break my heart – not knowingly, not purposely, not calculatedly… But no one prepared me for this. There were two more women in his life now, and I was not necessarily the one who he would come to for… anything.
You know that saying, “A son is a son till he takes a wife, but a daughter’s a daughter the rest of her life?” Well, it’s not really true-true, but what IS true is that relationships between moms and daughters are different than between moms and sons. But that’s not necessarily a BAD thing. Hang tight with me, and remember… I’m only 10 years into being a mother-in-law, and I’m still learning.
The year went soooo fast. There were showers, and photo shoots, and wedding planning, and since most of the planning for a wedding involves the woman… as the mother of the groom, it was often very awkward for me. My other son was getting ready to leave home and move to Chicago to attend college. So within a two week period of time, I went from having two sons living at home, to two sons leaving home.
Let’s stop right here.
Oftentimes you’ll hear people laugh about women going through menopause, right? Hot flashes, mood swings, stopping to cry in the middle of the day for no apparent logical reason, and the list goes on. Right? Those menopause years often happen right around the same season of life when a Mama’s kiddos are leaving her! So while I’m totally on board with the belief that hormones make us crazy during menopause, can we just stop for a minute and recognize that some of a Mama’s mood swings, crying spells, and dare I say – depression… might, just might be some legitimate GRIEF? So stop making fun of women going through menopause, and please consider recognizing what else might be going on in her life right now. We Mamas pour 150% of ourselves into our children, and we never stop to think about the day they might leave (for me, both at the same time).
At that time, I didn’t even have the WORDS to express what my heart was experiencing, nor could I even have IDENTIFIED what was happening in my heart. I was blind-sighted by what no one prepared me for. Mama’s – Am I right? Does ANYONE prepare us for this?
Holy Toledo – I can PROMISE you, that year, and even the couple following when my boys left home, were THEE roughest years of my entire LIFE! I dropped Ian off at college, and just before leaving, we were in the Chapel at Moody and they were praying for the students, and praying for the parents, and I was balling my brains out. Then, I had to drive in downtown Chicago (if you know me, you know how much I HATE driving in downtown Chicago!)… Ian ran down the street on the sidewalk next to the car as I drove, waving to me the entire way, just like he did when I dropped him off at grade school – waving until he could no longer see me in the car. I cried for about 50 miles, and finally pulled over and got a hotel for the night. I wasn’t quite ready to return home to a completely empty house.
So please don’t make fun of women for their menopausal quirks – consider the possibility of potential grief in their season of life. It’s real, friends. It’s real.
Alone. Now I was truly alone. And the years that followed I sometimes felt forgotten, I won’t lie. I often wondered if things would have been different had I been married, had a spouse, been a couple. Would I have been included more often? Perhaps taken more seriously?
I sought wisdom every chance I could (still do) – from younger women, from older women, divorced women, married women, and remember one in particular who told me about her mother-in-law. She said that once a week her mother-in-law would call and offer to bring lunch. It took her a decade, she said, to realize her mother-in-law didn’t want lunch with her – she wanted TIME with her, a relationship. So she offered lunch, thinking it would help build a relationship. Now I hear all the time about what a wonderful mother-in-law my friend is to HER daughters-in-law, all because of the intentionality she observed from her mother-in-law!
And me? Well, menopause is over. LOL But I still miss my sons, terribly sometimes. The house is still empty, and I am guilty of having complete conversations with myself. Even though I’ve known Holly for many years even prior to her becoming my daughter-in-law, our relationship growing into what it is today took work and TIME on both of our parts, and today, she is one of my closest and dearest friends and confidants.
I also have another sweet daughter-in-law, Hayley, in Colorado who I don’t get to see nearly as often as I do Holly, and even though no two relationships are the same, both are equally as special to me. She loves my son well, and she loves my grandchildren and they adore her right back! And I can promise you – there’s truly nothing sweeter than being able to sit back and watch your sons and their wives all enjoy each other, and to listen to them laughing, and playing with all the kids. And to know there’s two more sets of parents out there who love my sons who married their daughters? The whole world could just fall apart to pieces, and it wouldn’t matter. I’ve truly got it all. God is good. He is really, really good.
There came a time in the past 10 years, I’m not exactly sure at what point, when I think I realized that in ANY relationship – the sooner you realize “it’s not all about you,” the better off you’ll be.
I cringe when I hear young women talk about their mother-in-law’s, and wish they’d realize it takes effort, and sometimes downright HARD WORK from everyone. Things change when someone joins the family, or when someone leaves, and it always takes adjustment, intentionality, GRACE, and TIME. Don’t miss out on the blessing of an in-law.
This was a fly-over, maybe a trailer for what’s to come in the future. We’ll see. But hey – it looks like I’m actually going to publish this on my blog, because for ONCE, I actually made it to the very end.
I’m pretty sure I’m not done writing about the “in-law” life. I’m still collecting nuggets of wisdom from those who’ve walked this road because you know… I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but this whole in-law thing? I really, really wanna do it well.
Back when I was single-momming it, I worried so much. I worried I’d never be able to afford a house. I worried I wouldn’t be able to afford college for my kids. I worried other kids would make fun of them for not having a Dad. I worried constantly, but years later was able to look back and see how well God cared for the three of us. Holly and Hayley have been two of the sweetest gifts God has ever given me.
God always has better things in store for us than we can imagine. Always.
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/marks-of-a-spirit-filled-mother-in-law
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