Happy 80th Birthday!

     My mother-in-law is 80 years old today. I hope she enjoys the day spent with her family, even if it will be odd with half of us practicing social distancing. I've not always had an easy relationship with her, knowing she had ideas of a different type of person for her son, but fortunately it has not been a bad relationship. We are about as different as chalk and cheese, and our priorities in so many things are vastly different. She would never leave her house without full make up, nails done, jewelry, and impeccable dress. Even at the lake she coordinates her look. I never had the time when raising my kids while working full time to try and  meet those kinds of  presentation standards, and now, I just don't care enough. I don't like people just showing up at my door, and yet, she likes to do that to me. She finds me unwelcoming and I find her intrusive-two sides of a coin, two interpretations of the same situation. She also is a master of the back handed compliment, and finds ways to criticize by then saying she was just trying to help. Still, we share a love of family, of the importance of faith, and the desire to help those around us be happy. 

     How to describe her 80 years? She's the oldest of five, with a younger brother, and three sisters, raised in a small Wisconsin town by a very strict father and the sweetest woman imaginable. ( I only grew up with one grandparent, who died when I was 12 so marrying my husband and getting two sets of grandparents was  a wonderful bonus.) She went to work right out of highschool, meeting my  father-in-law at 19, married a year later, and my husband was born the year after that. While probably not easy, they financially  got on their feet early, owning a house at age 22, and the the original cabin, just four years later. They moved out of the city, but still owned their St Paul home with three kids, and my  brother-in-law, the youngest, was born in the town she still lives in, as do we.  She never worked outside of the home after  my husband was born, that alone a vast difference in our lives. Even after all kids were grown and out of the house, her life filled with her civic and church groups, coffee and card clubs, she never had an interest in working outside the home. There is probably a lot more to her than I know,  though I feel we have had a very  surface only relationship. 

     While she had what most people would describe as a very comfortable life, filled with travel, a busy social calendar, and lack of want for any luxuries, she had had profound sadness as well.  Shortly after I met my husband, his grandma, my MIL's mom, had a stroke, at just  73, followed by several more until she was confined to a nursing home. This was very hard on my MIL, to see her sweet mother slow down so much. Then, a winter accident caused by black ice, left my sister-in-law in a coma for five months, then passing away at just 27, leaving a two year old son behind. Her mom passed away  three years later, devastating her father, who's health declined rapidly there after. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2001, and slowly she lost her father, until he physically passed away in  2004. 

     After finally convincing her husband to slow down and retire after a decade of poor health, she and my father-in-law had a good 14 years  of nearly day to day togetherness. It was time filled at their cabin, wintering in Arizona, going  on cruises, to Norway, to England, and time together before he died in March 2015 at 74. She keeps as busy as she ever was with all her clubs, though in recent years has lost more and more friends and good acquaintances. She still loves to travel, so the  Stay at home has been hard for her that way. Since my FIL passed, she has gone on a four  cruises, one of which was for six weeks to New Zealand, and one through the Panama Canal. In 2017, she took all of her family with her on an Alaskan Cruise. She has been to Ireland, and  bus tours to Nova Scotia. Now, she has  her three remaining children, 12 grandchildren, and one great grandson. She has all her siblings still, but a family feud caused by her sisters brother over the shared cabin that used to be her parents, has caused a lot of strife. I feel bad for her about this as it is the dumbest feud ever, and has ruined  decades of  fun shared extended family time. 

     I hope today is special for her. My sister-in-law arranged for us all to write a total of 80 stories or memories, that will be put in a box for her to open and read over the coming year. We have a word  art designed for her, and will have mini bundt cakes, individual ice cream cups, I'm bringing flowers and DH is bringing balloons. I hope we get phone reception and DS can call. My nephew, the one that was two when his now 26, most likely won't be there. He rarely is part of the family events as his dad remarried and had two more children and loads of cousins on both his parents side. They all visit and talk to my MIL and she considers his brother and sister her grandchildren as well. We all have a friendly relationship with them, but her being closer to her late daughters husbands second wife than me (her words once to my husband when he called his parents out on something), shows how little we connect.

     So there you have it. My blog post that probably did not do justice to her life. I wish her many more years of happiness, and  lord willing, next year we can really celebrate her 81st year.