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| Donald and his mother, 2012 |
1985
Pretty much the
first words my future mother-in-law said to me were, “Every day for 15 years I
prayed that Heavenly Father would send a nice girl to bring my son back into
the church.”
A church he’d
left 20 years before we met and one that was offensive to me on just about
every level: racist, sexist, homophobic,
to name a few. I wouldn’t last five
minutes in that church. The moment I
opened my mouth, they’d show me the door.
I thought, “Lady,
if I’m the answer to your prayers, prepare to have your faith shaken.”
Donald had been
single for 15 years after his first marriage ended. He wasn’t in a hurry, and he wasn’t looking
for a cook, laundress, housemaid, or general caretaker. He was sufficient to his own needs and
enjoyed his own company. Just like
me. The idea that we could form a union
of two solitudes appealed to me. I preferred being wanted to being needed, and
I certainly didn’t aspire to be the answer to such a narrow prayer.
1988
The day before
Mother’s Day, our first child was born.
We’d had an ultrasound early on and knew we were having a daughter. We could literally picture her, name her, and
begin to grow attached to her. Both
families waited eagerly for her arrival.
When Donald
called his mother to tell her that Lindsay was here and everyone was fine, she
said, “Well, son, I’ll just keep praying that the next one’s a boy.” A door in my heart slammed shut just like
that, and it never really came open again.
1991
Our second daughter
was born at home on the day we were celebrating Lindsay’s third birthday. We had to call family and tell them to hold
off until further word from us, and the party was delayed by three or four
hours but featured a new guest. Selby was passed from
hand to hand for the first 24 hours of her life.
When Granny first laid eyes on ten-month-old Selby, she said, “Donald, she looks NOTHING like
you!” That’s the last thing
parents want to hear about their children, and it wasn’t even true. Pictures of Donald as a toddler are
indistinguishable from pictures of Selby at the same age.
It finally
occurred to me that I could choose to stop listening and reacting to words filed down to
sharp, lethal points. So I went
quiet. For years and years. I never interfered in her relationship with
Donald or our kids, but I kept a safe distance for myself. The kids figured it out soon enough, announcing
once after a visit with her, “She’s even bossier than YOU, Mom!”
2014
She always intended
to reach her 100th birthday and receive a birthday card from the
Queen, and she missed it by only four months.
But her latter years became increasingly difficult for her with health issues
and dementia.
The last time I
saw her—three months before she died—she had outlived her
desire to go on. She was confused and
fearful, she didn’t always know who we were, and she spent a good deal of time—as
she used to say of others—“awa’ wi’ th’ faeries.”
As we were leaving that day, she grabbed my hand with a desperate sense of urgency and said, “I
love you.” Then I heard myself say back
the very last words I ever expected to say to her: “I love you too.” I understood she didn’t know who I was; she
just needed to hear those words from another human voice.
I was never an
answer to her prayers, but in the end I gave her that.
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