Yes it’s a while since I posted anything on this blog of mine. A lot of the time since we returned from our Italy trip has been taken up with the practicalities of servicing the day-to-day, spending time with family, (which included a fabulous hen weekend for my niece), delighting in grandchildren, catching up with friends and organising the stuff that we still have left over from our house move. We’ve looked at it and decided to thin out our possessions even further; to lighten the load and live more simply. We don’t want a cluttered life - a litter of things getting in the way and obstructing the view out.
The weather has been incredible! So many weeks of warm, even hot, sunshine. It’s a bit scary from a global warming (global warning?) point of view but what a gift for our first whole summer of freedom, living full time in our caravan - between motorhome trips, that is!
Another amazing stroke of luck is that Gareth was called in for his hip operation, conveniently in time, hopefully, for him to recover before we go off to Ireland at the end of September. It’s a trip I’m so looking forward to as it’s my eldest niece, Roz’s, wedding and it will be a lovely family gathering. Not only is this a convenient time for Gareth’s op but he has had the luxury of a private hospital, compliments of the NHS! We’re a bit conflicted about the need for the NHS to do that, but he’s now recovering nicely at the caravan, everything within easy reach and all on one level. It’s a lovely summer, and this is a great place for convalescence. We couldn’t be any luckier.
Counting my blessings is a regular practice of mine. When I was a small child my paternal grandmother taught me how in a little song: “Count your blessings name them one by one……”. It meant more to me when Ma sang it than it did at Sunday School. These days walking with the dogs every day in this beautiful place I contemplate my own good fortune and am humbled by it, realising how other people’s fortunes are in so many cases much, much less happy. Recent sad news of a death in the family brings that fact into sharp focus. We hadn’t seen each other for many years and the news has me thinking about how time can make strangers of those who were once close to us.
Recently I have been thinking a lot about female relationships. I don’t know why, but thoughts about my two, now departed, mothers-in-law have particularly occupied me, and what it means to be a mother-in-law, particularly now that I am one myself. The title of ‘mother-in-law’ gets a much more negative press than ‘father-in-law’. There are far more jokes, horror stories and unflattering stereotypes of mother-in-law.
Example: A woman goes to her boss and asks for a day off to visit her mother-in-law. “Absolutely not!” Is the reply. “Thank you so much for your understanding” says the woman, feeling relieved.
I had a much closer relationship with Gareth’s mother but I had by then learned how to be a better daughter-in-law in relating to her. Having three boys of my own had given me reason to think about how a woman has to part from her son when he finds his life partner. The little rhyme “A son is a son till he takes him a wife, a daughter’s a daughter the rest of her life” stuck with me from the time my mother first recited it to me and has made me envious of my sisters who have both. I can see, now, how thoughtlessly I sometimes behaved towards my first mother-in-law when I was a young woman. She chastised me very gently for my thoughtlessness on just three occasions and her words have stayed with me down the years. “I know he’s yours now” she once said to me, “but let me keep just a little bit of him, please”.
Now that my sons all have homes and family of their own, I know just how she felt. My three daughters-in-law are exceptional, talented, strong women. It’s hugely satisfying to know that each of my boys is settled and in a loving relationship though of course, my concern for their welfare and happiness will stay with me always. The challenge for me now, as an older woman, is how to take a back seat. When my boys were little, an older mother with grown up sons said she’d had to learn to “wear grey and stay in the background”.
Q. What’s the difference between outlaws and in-laws? A. Outlaws are wanted! (By the way, has anyone come up with a suitable equivalent title where the couple are not married? ‘Mother-in-common-law’ is a bit of a mouthful)
I tend not to wear much grey and I’m not good at keeping thoughts to myself by staying in the background. As grandmother I do, of course, have my uses, but I am as alien an individual in the world of the younger women’s experience as they are in mine. I’d like to think that I have more to offer them now that I have 65 years under my belt, and I wouldn’t dream of chastising them in the way I was years ago when I was overwhelmed with new baby. I was told that I needed to learn how to cope and not to look to my husband for support. That may say more about my mother-in-law’s own experience now I think about it and it’s taken all this time for that thought to surface. Anyway, just as the passing of time can make strangers of those who were once close, so can it also cement and deepen relationships. In my role as mother-in-law I hope that’s what happens. In my rear view mirror I can see the distance I’ve travelled, and it was a good journey on the whole. We all have our own journeys to make but it’s good to share our experiences. I’m not too old to learn, and I’m still working at being a better person so I look forward to the coming years. I hope that, as mother-in-law, grandmother, as well as in all the other roles, I will have performed well.
Later:
Crikey, that was a bit heavy, wasn’t it? But I guess that’s the nature of a journal and if (when?) I get dementia it will help me remember who I was.
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