Fond memories of my mother-in-law

This week’s column I devote to an unlikely love story. It’s about my love for my mother-in-law.

When I was young, my big sister used to tell me that when someone marries, they marry not just one person, but an entire family. So choose wisely, she counseled me. My response back then was usually a snarky, “yeah right,” or something like that.

But then I grew up and got married, and it didn’t take me long to realize how right my sister was and how important my husband’s mother, Mary, would become to me. Her big heart, generous spirit and unconditional devotion to her family put a lie to the stereotype of the manipulative, interfering monster-in-law so often portrayed in movies and television.

And in all the years that have passed since I married her son, I have often had occasion to wonder at my good fortune in having such a mother-in-law. Somehow, I had chosen wisely indeed.

Now I must speak of this wonderful woman in the past tense. She recently passed away after a terrible, but mercifully brief, battle with cancer. She left this world surrounded by the love of a grateful family.

I have learned that it’s best to remember those who are taken from us by disease not as they were at the end of their lives ––when their bodies and minds have been ravaged by the illness –– but as they were when they were still truly, wholly themselves.

As I look back at the person Mary was when I first met her, and during the many years that followed, she was in every way a woman of substance. From the very beginning of our relationship, she embraced me as nothing less than her own daughter. If she felt any trepidation over this new woman in her son’s life, she certainly hid it well. She appeared to see me not as an interloper, a rival for her son’s attention and affections. Her heart just stretched a little; she welcomed me in, and there I stayed, feeling right at home.

I also remember the first time my own dear mother met my mother-in-law-to-be.

“What a beautiful woman,” she declared.

And then when I lost my mom not long after I was married, Mary helped to fill the hole in my heart.

When I became ill after the births of my two sons, she cared for me. Whenever I’d grow exasperated with her son, she sympathized. My husband was her baby boy, the apple of her eye, but Mary knew all too well the buttons he could push. She’d usually manage to get me to laugh about whatever it was that irked me, as if understanding my husband’s quirks and loving him anyway was a secret we two shared.

Both of my parents-in-law always struck me as the epitome of salt-of-the earth decency, unpretentious, rock solid and fiercely loyal. Mary was just 17 years old when she married my father-in-law, but somehow they beat the odds and stayed together through nearly 64 years of marriage. They worked at two of the noblest professions –– she a nurse, he a firefighter. Together they had three children, eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Tradition was of paramount importance to Mary. Holidays were sacrosanct. Her birthdays and Mother’s Day were big, noisy, chaotic, multigenerational affairs. Sentimental to the core, she loved schmaltzy cards and ostentatious displays of affection. She spent her retirement tending her garden, doting on her dog and fretting about one or another family member.

She loved talking about her family. In fact, one of her biggest faults –– if you could call it that –– was that she was a bit of a showoff about her family. She liked to tell us about the way she would lord it over her friends and neighbors whenever our large, extended clan had yet another get-together, and relished the pangs of envy she sometimes provoked.

“I love it!” she would say with a mischievous grin.

Her last family gatherings were occasions for sorrow and tears. But, true to form, everyone showed up because that’s just what you did for Mary. Hospital staff would walk into her room and do double-takes at the large number of people gathered around her bedside.

“Are we having a party?” one worker asked.

Yes, I suppose, in a way we were. And that’s just how Mary would have wanted it.

Right after she passed, I was attempting to sleep, and when I finally succeeded my dreams were fitful. But then I woke up and recalled that in my dream my husband was talking to me, reminding me that we should appreciate every moment and never let go of the things in life that have the most meaning to us.

I believe that’s what Mary did. She always put family first because that’s what was most important to her. She was grateful for every day she had on this earth.

And if I’ve learned the lesson she taught me well enough, some day if someone new decides they want to join my family, I’ll try to do as she did and stretch my heart a little to make room.

PATRICE APODACA is a former Newport-Mesa public school parent and former Los Angeles Times staff writer. She lives in Newport Beach.