It is once again that time when we take stock of the year that is ending. In my family, we experienced a few major life changes in 2023: I finally graduated from university in the spring, after years of taking one course at a time here and there (I wrote about it here); we travelled to Manitoba to bury my mother’s ashes beside my father in a little country cemetery; our daughter got married; and while we were still in Manitoba, just after we had buried my mother’s remains, my mother-in-law died.
My mother-in-law was born in Bedfordshire, England. She was eventually sent to live with an aunt in Northamptonshire, the next county over, and went to school there. She used to talk about seeing the Duchess of Spencer, Princess Diana’s grandmother, at county events. She married her childhood sweetheart in April 1953; they were married for 64 years before he passed away.
I was lucky to get to know her as part of my family. I have happy memories of her as a companion on day trips that we would take while we were on vacation, trips to the South Shore of Nova Scotia, to Oaklawn Zoo, to Halifax, or explorations we made when she came to visit us in Ontario. She was relatively quiet and refined, but she had a wonderful sense of humour, and the most adorable giggle. My husband tells the story about watching a baseball game with her on television one day. Somewhere along the lines, some wires got crossed and instead of the audio for the baseball telecast, opera music was playing. The two of them were in stitches – I can only imagine!
My M-I-L was, in many ways, a perfect M-I-L. She never made me feel like she was judging me, and I never heard her utter one word of criticism about me, which is rather miraculous, given what she had to work with! She did not offer gratuitous advice about how I should or should not be raising my children, and she never parented my children over me. She loved being “Grandma,” and was always interested in what the children were up to.
I am sure it was not an easy life for her in many ways. Her husband was away for work for a time when their children were very young, in that time before the instant and constant communication that we all enjoy now, and then they immigrated to Canada in the 1960s, away from everything and everyone that was familiar. I think she probably lived a lot of her public life outside of her comfort zone. But through it all, she remained a lovely, warm woman.
The one word that I have repeatedly heard to describe her is “gracious.” According to the dictionary, a definition of “gracious” is “courteous, kind, and pleasant.” Other similar words that come to mind are “tactful,” “hospitable,” and “warmhearted.” The word “grace” comes from the Latin word gratia, “esteem” or “favour.” My M-I-L was all of those things. She was, I think, basically a shy person, but when her husband eventually became the President of a well-known liberal arts university, she stepped into the role of hostess. She hosted millionaires and renowned scholars, and she welcomed, with equal (maybe more) warmth and kindness and esteem, town people and timid first year students from rural Maritime villages. She welcomed me, not only into her home, but into her family.
She was 94 when she died. Like so many others, she found the culture created by COVID difficult, and we were not able to see her very often. However, for the last few years of her life, she really enjoyed reading the birthday cards she received from her daughter’s elementary school class.
