My mother-in-law was the nicest person you’d ever want to meet

It’s a well-worn trope to bash your mother-in-law, but I can’t do that. My MIL was the nicest person on the face of the planet. Ask anyone who knew Diane. They’ll tell you.

I’m not being snarky either. She WAS the nicest person you’d ever want to meet.

I don’t want to give the impression that she was a pushover or a snowflake. Far from it. This was a woman who did not suffer fools gladly. In fact, she didn’t suffer them at all. She was simply busy the day they wanted to talk to her. If you asked her why she no longer got together with so-and-so, she didn’t go into a diatribe about their faults. She just shrugged. “I had something else to do that day,” she might say.

After her children were grown and out of the house, she took a job as a sale rep for a small print shop for a few years. At Christmas, she delivered homemade bread to all her clients. How nice is that?

I never heard her gossip about anyone. If the conversation moved to negative talk about an individual, she would wave her hand slightly and say, “I don’t know anything about that.”

Whenever we came to visit, she always smiled, always happy to see us. After the smile, she might remind us to wipe our shoes or hang up our coats, but the smile came first. Even at the end, when her brain was shutting down and she couldn’t remember how to walk or eat, she always smiled when we came to visit.

Her family was her focus. Every November, she baked mountains of gingerbread cookies, then invited all of us over to decorate them. It was a party to get us in the Christmas spirit. (Plus, it meant she wasn’t left with the task of icing all those Santas and reindeer by herself.) All of us remember those get-togethers with great affection. I have tried to replicate those decorating parties, but somehow the impact is not the same without her hovering in the background, dishing out the meringue frosting and giving kisses to the grandchildren for a job well done.

She and I were of different generations, and I was her only daughter-in-law, so our relationship had some bumps, but no severe turbulence. She gladly gave up her career as a teacher to stay home and raise a family. When we met, I was pursuing the feminist goal of moving up the corporate ladder, complete with pussy-bow blouses, neutral-color suits, and sensible-heeled pumps. I had announced that I intended to continue working after becoming a parent. She never criticized me for it. When my first child was born, I willingly abandoned all that to be a stay-at-home mom, too enthralled by my baby boy’s incredible life journey to think about going back to work. Diane never once said, “I told you so.”

We disagreed a few times on how to raise my children, but she never ridiculed me or talked dirt about me to my husband behind my back. She gave me her opinion, and I was free to take it or leave it. I was left to sink or swim on my own, but I knew better than to complain to her later about how things turned out.

Housekeeping was one area where I did not measure up, especially early in our relationship. She thought I was a bit sloppy, and I thought she had too much concern for order and structure. She showed me how she kept her kitchen. There was a towel to wipe your hands and another for drying utensils and plates. One side of the cutting board was for chicken and one for everything else.

I was not that meticulous. If I had a clean towel, that was as good as it gets. Separate cutting boards? A good dose of Dawn took care of that. And, for you fussy nuggets, my children did not suffer from horrendous gastrointestinal diseases. Maybe they built a strong immune system from that careless attitude towards germs.

She didn’t harangue me about my inattention to detail in the kitchen. She never brought the subject up after that initial discussion. However, I did notice she never asked to be invited over for dinner to my house. Nice, but doing it her way. I was free to do what I wanted, and she was free to react the way she thought best.

One time, she admitted that maybe I had the right idea about neatness. It turns out she was a little jealous of how I spent time with the little tykes. She didn’t remember sitting and playing with the children the way I did. She was too busy cleaning and cooking. Her children had been expected to keep themselves occupied.

Some lessons we didn’t understand until after she had gone. My father-in-law was a powerful force in the family, and we often wondered about that relationship’s dynamic, because we never saw her argue with him or correct him in any way. As we dissected her life this past year, we have come to the conclusion that she simply ignored him when he got on her nerves. She was stubborn (some might say passive-aggressive), but she was nice about it.

For example, they were snowbirds for many years. At some point, Diane tired of the travel and the upheaval in her daily life. So, one year she simply refused to go back. I don’t think she ever raised her voice to her husband on the subject; she just refused. And they never went to Florida again.

I spent many years worrying about being a good mother, but I never gave a conscious thought about how I would be as a mother-in-law. I have two daughters-in-law now, and soon to have a third. It’s becoming more of a discussion in my head.

How do I be myself and be as good an MIL as Diane?

Allow my DILs to be themselves. Offer advice sparingly, support their decisions, and let it ride. And keep going with the holiday cookie party as a tribute to Diane’s generosity and love of family.

This month marks what would have been my mother-in-law’s 88^th birthday. She passed away a little over a year ago, and I am all still finding ways I miss her.

That’s my goal for my relationships with my daughters-in-law. When I’m gone, I hope they miss me, not dis me.