When This Mother-in-Law Talks, You Listen

2 years ago

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Mary C. Curtis

National Correspondent

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"I was robbed by a nun, true as I'm sitting here."

Spending the holidays in New York City with my mother-in-law is never boring. She knows how to tell a story. Take the above quote. Let's just say she could teach me a thing or three about grabbing an audience. And that's all she wants now. Once or twice a year, it's the least I can do. Listen, I mean.

I start off thinking I'm doing her a favor. But then, the stories flow and I'm mesmerized.

The one about the nun turned into a tale of a friend of the family, who showed up to pay her respects when my mother-in-law's sister died. The nun, according to my mother-in-law, somehow walked off with an antique Irish linen tablecloth, "worth a lot of money." Maybe she hid it under her habit.

Some of Irene Macy Olsen's stories become exaggerated in repeated telling. But the most impressive need no embellishment. This tough English-Irish lady really did serve in World War II in the women's Coast Guard, performing office duties on the West Coast. This was before she married, of course. She doesn't go into the details, but when she talks about hitching rides up and down the Coast with military pilots, the twinkle in her eye hints at adventures that have nothing to do with combat.

Woman Up writers don't spend a lot of time looking back; there's enough going on in the here and now to keep us plenty busy. It's always a revelation to learn the stories of those who went before, as told through the eyes of their sort-of relative one generation removed, as Bonnie and Michelle learned. What better time than the holidays to pay some attention to those who fought some contentious battles and paved the way.

My 87-year-old mother-in-law has the scars.

There's a little sadness and regret when she talks about her travels in China and Japan, when she worked for an Asian businessman, and the chances she passed up. It was expected that a young woman would marry, have children, and settle down. So that's what she did. She did choose to marry, but that may not have been her first choice.

She made the best of it, though. The children -- my husband and his younger sister -- came, and she worked through it all, in the challenging job of supervising social workers in New York City. She's proud of the children she saved, the families she kept together, of the smart, young girl she got out of her home and into the exclusive boarding school Choate on a scholarship.

At times, she had more feel for those children than her young ones. I felt for my husband when I saw how she struggled to relate to my son when he was little. But now that he's grown, they're tight. Her only grandchild loves her stories, too, the more outlandish, the better.

I still have trouble saying Mom and -- coward that I am -- try to address her in sentences that don't require me to call her anything at all. But I will always be grateful for the support she gave me when I became pregnant. She was the only one in her generation -- and that includes my wonderful mom -- who never once hinted that perhaps it would be a good idea for me to stop working, at least for a while. She took pride in all my achievements. She still does.

I only hope that I get many more chances to hear her stories about a winding, rocky path that smoothed the way for me.

Filed Under: Woman Up

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