When my husband and I married 18 years ago, I struggled with what to call his mother. “Mom” seemed a little too intimate for a woman I’d known less than two years. It felt weird to call her Mrs. So-and-So and disrespectful to use her first name. So I didn’t call her anything, skillfully waiting until she glanced in my general direction to talk to her.
I think she sensed my awkwardness. A while back, she signed a birthday card to me, “Texas Mom” — she lives three hours from Dallas — and that’s suited both of us well.
Texas Mom has never implied that she could do a better job of raising my kids than I do. She knows just the right way to offer suggestions without coming across as a know-it-all. I count the days until her next visit, knowing she’ll whip up meals so delectable that I feel a tinge of guilt. I do the dishes, but know that doesn’t come close to the effort she’s made.
Society demonizes mother-in-laws and comedians cut their chops on mother-in-law jokes, but they lack a certain je ne sais quoi for me.
Texas Mom stayed home with her three boys when they were little, then got a part-time job at Sears when they were in high school. She didn’t graduate from college and never moved from the state of her birth, but I have learned a thing or two from my mother-in-law.
She says it’s important for children to know their grandparents, and that’s why she’s so attentive to my kids. Her own grandmother died more than 60 years ago, but she talks about how much she still misses her. She knows how to hem a drape and make the best coconut cake I’ve ever tasted. She rarely says a bad word about anyone. If she says one about you, you probably deserve it.
Texas Mom is past 80, but every year she gets on a plane and flies across three states to be with us at Christmas. We don’t have a guest bedroom so she shares a double bed with my teen-aged daughter and she gives her a parting gift for her “sacrifice.” When my daughter was 7, it was a porcelain figurine of an angel. One year, it was a sapphire necklace. Last year, she gave her two new pillows.
During her trip last Christmas, she fell at the airport — thankfully she wasn’t hurt — and strangers had to help her get up. I know the time will come that she’ll no longer be able to make these trips. But for now, I treasure the memories she’s making with my children and the little ways she looks out for all of us.
Every time Al Roker mentions on the “Today Show” that a foot of snow fell in the mountains west of Denver, she calls to make sure we’re alright. We live in the city, a half hour drive from the foothills, and I tell my mother-in-law that the only flakes I see are those swirling around in the snow globe on our mantle.
Ten or so years ago, she called to check on us after she saw a news account on TV about some catastrophic event in Wyoming — a nuclear explosion of some sort. The report said towns within hundreds of miles, including Denver, could be affected. At the time, I was a reporter at the Rocky Mountain News and I whipped into action, calling to tip my editor to this breaking news story. I later learned the “event” was part of a made-for-TV movie. Somewhere, I think, Orson Welles was laughing his you-know-what off.
Texas Mom has always been there for us. Fifteen years ago, when I gave birth to triplets, she flew in to help with round-the-clock feedings and dozens of daily diaper changes. I can still see her holding one of my sons to her chest, all 4 pounds of him, oxygen tubes coming out of his nostrils. She flew out again when I had my fourth child nine years ago. She always knew how to comfort my babies and make them stop crying.
I wish I could have done the same for her. Sometime in the late 1990s, my father-in-law was diagnosed with dementia, and her life became a succession of doctors’ appointments and constant care taking. She refused to put him in a nursing home until the last possible moment. As his condition worsened, she bought small cards that said, “Please excuse my husband’s behavior; he has Alzheimer’s.” Whenever they went out in public, she discretely slipped the cards to waiters and sales people. The cards did the trick. Whenever my father-in-law got disproportionately angry or said something inappropriate, waitresses brushed it off with a smile. She’s ingenuous, my mother-in-law.
When their 50th wedding anniversary arrived, she gathered family and friends for a quiet celebration. By this point, he barely recognized his children or lifelong buddies, but that didn’t matter. My mother-in-law sat proudly at the table with her man, talking gently to him and probably reflecting on their years together. My husband gave a toast about their marriage. He said he never heard his parents argue, though he remembers his mother once being slightly annoyed with his father.
This Mother’s Day, as I unwrap a bottle of perfume or a tube of passion pink lipstick, I’ll be thinking not so much about the fact that I gave birth to four children, but that I wish I could spend it with a woman who lives nearly 1,000 miles away.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!
Ann Carnahan Espinola is a former Rocky Mountain News reporter. She can be reached at ann.espinola@live.com.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
