There are people we meet in our lives who profoundly change the way we see ourselves and the world. One such of those people for me, lost her battle with cancer this morning,
I was raised Irish Catholic, in the most strictest sense of the word. Until I was 13 or so I wanted to be a nun. Wear the habit and profess my undying love for god. Then I discovered boys, and that ended.
The woman, this one woman, and her quiet wisdom did more to change my life than any program, or religion ever could have. Was she perfect, no, but I could not have asked for a better Mother in Law, or a better friend.
Flash Forward 30 years, and a man asks me out to dinner, he is too young, and I am too jaded, but some how he wins me over, and we end up engaged. He tells his mother about me, and she literally spit her food across the table, or so I was told. My children are only a couple of years younger than her youngest son. Now I had my children VERY early and she had her last one rather late, but still. Her oldest is only a few years younger than I am.
She accepts who I am, but does not want the kids to call her grandma, or any other grand motherly name, she says she is too young for that. We accept that, and the kids call her mam.
As time passes we develop a friendship, not just in a Mom in law - daughter in law thing, but a real friendship, except I can not complain about my husband of course.
I would like to share with you some of the wisdom's passed on to me by my mother in law, I call them Teklaisms, (her name was Tekla)
We were discussing my missing daughter and her missing daughter one Christmas, the whys and wherefores of why they were not around much.
The childhood anger that was driving them both.
Resentful Children
Tekla said of her daughter, the problem with children holding resentments from childhood is that they make these decisions with only partial information and a child's immature emotions. Now seriously, think about your own decisions about your parents, and tell me that is not absolutely true. This one statement changed how I saw my mother, and my children.
Raising Boys:
Raising a girl is easy for us, we were once them, and can identify with them. Boys are that species we still do not understand, so how can we possibly understand how to raise them , that is what fathers, grandfathers and uncles are for.
Money:
There is never enough of it, but it is not the defining factor in our lives, we define ourselves.
Divorce:
I should have done it years ago, I thought I was doing the right thing staying for the kids. I was wrong.
Babies:
Highly overrated (LOL) but she wished one of her children would give her at least one grandchild, at the time she had none. A few years later, Jeanna was born, and she was thrilled.
Work:
A means to a retirement, where you can do the things you really love to do.
Politics:
Democrat, politicians are elected to protect the public from big business, whose business is to NOT care about the public.
Technology: (the field I worked in)
A computer is a nice place to store files, not much useful after that. Cell phones are good for emergency situations, and that was the extent of technology.
Religion:
A Tool used by men to control our lives, in particular our reproductive lives.
Education:
As one of the few women who got to go to college in the 50's she valued education above all of her accomplishments. She rode the subway and buses to get to Pace University, from Lodi New Jersey to Manhattan.
Tekla Hallanan 1937 * 2010
You will be well missed. I am grateful to have known you.