The most painful thing in family living is when family does not get along well… when there cannot be love between all members of the family. Now, it’s bad when a family member dies. But when one person or another doesn’t or won’t love another, that’s death that won’t die. That’s experiencing the death over and over and over again.
My family was and is the love of my life. When I was a child, from the first day I can remember, my mother and her mother-in-law didn’t get along. It wasn’t that my grandmother disapproved of my mother; it was that my mother didn’t understand (or care to learn to understand) my grandmother. And the amazing part was that they were both wonderful loving, caring and responsible people. I have these visions in my head of different scenes when my father had to make a choice between these two women he loved. And I am sad to say that my mother pushed it by constantly telling Dad how irritating she found my grandmother. It was as if Mom went out of her way to recall the things that Grandma did that she disliked, while the many things Grandma did that were wonderful weren’t mentioned. It appeared to me that my mother nursed and fed those bad events while she starved the times that were good. And, again, I want to reiterate that my mother and my grandmother were both incredible wonderful people.
Here was my dad in the middle of this mess… constantly trying to make peace through suffering. He couldn’t have a normal reaction to anything his mother did for fear that his wife would take that and run with it as ammo against his mother. And if he did, in a moment of weakness, say “Mom just makes me nuts sometimes,” … and all mothers I’m sure make their children nuts at times, myself included for here I am… Dad could count on Mom to talk and talk about all the times she’d stored up in her memory of those things she felt my grandmother did wrong, or that irritated her. And what did that do to my dad? It made him 1.) Sorry that he said anything 2.) Nervous because he would again recall he’d have to watch what he said around her 3.) Confused as to how he could have a relationship with both of them. Sorry, nervous, and confused… that’s a terrible thing to do to your husband just because one can’t suck it up and find goodness in his mother.
When I’ve spoken on this venue, I’ve had it thrown in my face many times that Genesis tells us in the Bible that “a man shall leave his family and cleave to his wife.” It’s true. But let’s be clear. It also does NOT say that his wife should be a disrespectful self-centered individual putting her husband and children in a compromising and painful place just because she wants to be upset 24/7 with his mom. It also does not say that a husband should leave his family and make his wife’s family the center of his life just because this is where his wife feels cozy. And this has happened not only to my father and his children, but to many with whom I have shared this story over the years. Isn’t it stunning that new young wives even as we speak, are doing exactly what my mother inadvertently did to my father, my grandmother and ultimately to her children?
Yes, I said children. I and my brother and sister were not blind death and dumb. We could see the division. We knew that Mom felt this way. It made it difficult for us to have love where she was unable to love. We adored her and she was a role model. I recall thinking at one point, “If Mom and Dad don’t like Grandma and I’m like my grandmother, do they love me?” I didn’t vocalize this until I was way into my adult life. The only regret I have is that I waited so long to address it with my mother. When she saw that her words and actions toward my dad’s mother were deeply affecting me, she did an abrupt 180 and never ever uttered another word against her mother-in-law. In fact she made an effort to embrace my grandmother’s memory with a respect that had been due. I hope I am somehow like her with the errors in my own life! Kudos to her! She saw that love was being murdered in our family by allowing ourselves to be separate in such a cruel and self-centered way. Because there was communication, at last, between the two of us she was able to do what she did best… LOVE.
I have four sons. After each one was born, I recall wondering if my grandmother’s painful experience would one day be mine. And, I recall asking myself, “How hard is it to love your husband’s mother if for no other reason than the fact that she gave him life, raised him, taught him to love, and further, that it would hurt him to experience a wife’s bad attitude towards his mother if she didn’t?” I never had the chance to love my husband’s mother since she died when he was barely sixteen years of age. I can only respect the memory of her. Maybe it’s very difficult, but still… In the marriage vow we take, we say we will do what is in the best interest of our husband to be: “I Carolyn, take thee William, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse…” (and if worse means loving his mother then so be it).
Now here I am with four sons and no daughters of my own. Yes, intellectually, I can say to myself that many believe a son who favors his father will marry a woman like his mother. This will help to produce a good relationship between the two women. But if the son favors his mother, then he will marry someone like his father… the two women will be opposites and the union, in family love and friendship between wife and mother, will be more challenging.
As each son marries, I have wondered if this terrible tragedy that continues to plague so many families as it did my parents’ union, will become the burden of death and destruction in my life a second time. Two sons are now married with lovely wives.
But in the back of my mind, I still recall the very painful death of love when my mother could not accept my grandmother until she was into her 80s… too late to take back the pain she’d given my father and grandmother, and too late to issue her love and understanding. So today as the sun rises on a new day, I rededicate myself to prayer for my family and the hope that our family dynamics will be focused always on love of one another (all of us and not just part of us)… that we will never forget the power of these words: “I’m sorry, and I love you.”
May you experience the same joy.
Best… Carolyn Thomas Temple