All she left behind

We lost my mother-in-law last week to breast cancer.  She was 80 years old.

The last few weeks have been rough on my house.  We visited her each weekend the past month so she could see her grandchildren.  Viking was by her side for much of the time, she had decided against intervention, having undergone radiation and a double mastectomy ten years ago. She was fortunate to have the means to have a hospice nurse visit her daily.  Late last week my father-in-law had to go into the hospital himself - it was a prostate scare, he's fine, but his being admitted meant that she could no longer be at home.  She was transferred to a residential care unit at their retirement community and died later that night. It was peaceful and she was not in pain.

Niblet took it hard, and realized that she carries memories of her grandmother that her sister will never have. Viking is as good as could be expected, he has good days and bad.

I'm working through so many emotions.  My MIL was viewed by the world as a saint.  To some extent she was.  All of her outer life was lived for her husband and children.  I mean all of it.  She had many views that were a relic of the 50's.  My brother-in-law liked to joke that his parents stopped evolving in 1962, just before the British invasion. I was something of an alien to her: a Jewish New Yorker.  That I was a lawyer wasn't so shocking.  That I was a former dancer who continued dancing even after my professional days ended was ("Why would you pursue something that caused injuries?  You really danced every day even when you went to high school? Are you sure Niblet is safe pursuing ballet as you did?") I remember once lamenting not being able to get out of the house when Niblet was born and colicky.  I missed seeing other women.  I missed decompressing in a dance class, I missed enjoying a meal where I didn't have to try to eat while feeding another person.

"Those days are over for you right now," she said to me.  "Your needs have to be put on hold."

I recall being so resentful of this at the time. I was nursing and up every 2 hours.  I needed a shower and a massage. Was that really so selfish?

Looking back I have *so* much more sympathy for her.  She was, in fact, alone when she was raising her first son, her husband away in the Navy.  She was isolated.  I'll bet money she suffered from PPD without a support network, it was just what a young American mother was expected to do.

She had an inner life that most of us could only really scratch the surface of.  She looked like Grace Kelly (for real, she was stunningly beautiful as a young woman). She loved gardening.  Writing letters. (I've both vented and joked a ton about some of those letters on this blog, they were at times hilarious in their formality, and at times infuriating). She once told me she was interested in anthropology and would have studied it more in college if she could.  She wasn't interested at all in clothes or fashion or jewelry.  She enjoyed classical music, and could play piano, though she never did in front of us, even when we got our own piano - as it happens my FIL was a trained music major in college conservatory, and I imagine she stopped playing once he came into the picture.  Playing piano for an audience - even family members - was HIS thing. She was an awesome swimmer, once a lifeguard in her teens. She was fiercely in love with her husband and devoted to her sons. And loved her grandchildren. Both of them, despite her misgivings about my decision to have a second.  Babies made her smile.  

She was also a hoarder.  Oh man.  The boxes.  I mean BOXES.

But she gave me my Viking.  With all of his flaws (the hoarding tendencies inherited from her FO SHO).  

Her obituary was short - she was a wife of 57 years, mother to two surviving sons, grandmother to two grandchildren, sister to two surviving brothers.  That's it.  She refused to have a funeral, my BIL attributing this to her "unwavering modesty."  

In Judaism we say of the dead, "May their memory be for blessing."  Never have these words rung more true.  Her legacy is captured in our memories and it's our responsibility to ensure it lives on.