A Room With a View

This is the view from my motel room in Fremont, Nebraska
That's a soybean field--and there in the distance, the curve of the Earth.

It's flat here and the eye travels easily to the horizon.

I spent the 30 years of my marriage visiting my in-laws here at least once or twice a year. It's surprisingly different from the countryside in Iowa where I grew up. But I've spent most of my life in big cities, so I can see the Nebraska countryside through city-dweller eyes too. It can look mysterious. Even a bit eerie.

It's a great place to contact aliens.
Or imagine animatronic dinosaurs or skeletal insects devouring the earth.

But I didn't come here this trip to write stories. I came to bid final farewell to my ex-mother-in-law. I made a terrible first impression in 1975. Braless and in short-shorts, I was wild girl with even wilder hair cavorting with the son that was meant for the seminary. 

She and I found common ground though and I treasured her. She was one of the most likable people I've ever met. 

Today after her funeral, after witnessing her ashes put into the ground in her husband's grave, I gave myself a tour of her yard. She gardened with both a reverent and a fanciful hand. She loved "garden junk,"especially and I do too, though most of my own treasures now come from the beach. 

 There's a row of towering evergreens that she planted as tiny saplings.

One summer she requested custom stepping stones with the handprints of her grandchildren.

She burned her trash--but only what could not be composted or recycled. 

Her hard work yielded much beauty. And while the yard certainly is not at the pinnacle of its glory years, her hand is still evident. I stood in front of her tool shed for a bit this afternoon, wanting to open it, but I didn't. She put me to work there during my first visit post divorce. I remember the smell of dirt and oil, but I can't remember what it was she had me do, only that I felt safe there in that small dark space that housed the tools she used to create her art.

Mildred was the most fervently religious person I've ever known. I may have been one of the most irreligious people she ever knew. Yet, somehow I believe that she resides now with her God, the angels and the saints. May she rest in peace. 

Hugging

In the hug-fest that constituted the departure from my ex-mother-in-law's house, she explained that, in her day, hugging was pretty much verboten. "I never even hugged my own mother," she said as we clustered around her waiting for our turn to be folded into her arms. "Not even once?" someone asked. "Mama always said that we should keep our hands to ourselves," she said. But the hugging continued. Both my daughters, my daughter M's girlfriend, my niece, me. "I've had to learn to hug," my ex-mother-in-law said, "but at 92, I think I'm getting pretty good at it."

There's a lot to ponder there. I've been a huggy person my whole life. This makes me wonder about my ex-husband. Did he learn to hug from me? Or was it a generational thing--the fallout from the summer of love-make love not war-love is all there is-free love zeitgeist of our generation? My parents hugged me. My parents hugged each other--though they would have given the ix-nay to the free love stuff. Somehow down this long and winding road, it seems that a hug is both hello and good-bye with all the people I care about.

The reason I had a chance to hug my ex-mother-in-law this weekend was due to a family wedding in Nebraska. When I arrived at the party the evening before, the entire group of ex-in-laws stood up to hug me and my daughters. There was so much jockeying around, it's a wonder none of us backed into the pool.

There was hugging as a prelude to the in-law hugging, too. I met my daughter's girlfriend for the first time prior to the drive to Nebraska. Dinner was arranged and the young couple met me and the girlfriend's mother at one of my favorite St. Paul restaurants. We mothers arrived first, and via our cellphones the daughters coached us mothers into recognizing one another. We hugged--a bit awkwardly, flailing between outstretched arms and extended hands. Maybe we're prepping to be mothers-in-law.

I am a fan of the hug. Being the Francophile that I am, I might go for the double-barreled cheek kissing, but Americans are awkward at that. And of course hugging can be awkward, too. Mr. Ex was at the wedding and at his mom's house the next day. We didn't hug. Not hello. Not good-bye. That would have been awkward. The vibe I get from him is that he finds me despicably revolting. I've discovered that I don't really care at all about him anymore. In fact, I found myself recalling the philosophy of the man who loves me more than once this weekend--"at the time, in that place, you did the best that you could." In this way he gives the benefit of the doubt to almost everyone. When we first met, I scoffed at this tolerant idea as I mourned my own past mistakes and railed against those of Mr. Ex. This weekend as I watched Mr. Ex, I thought those very words. But I'll save my hugs. The hugging door between Mr. Ex and me is closed.

Collateral Damage

 I think it's safe to say that Mr. Ex and I will never have a congenial post-divorce relationship. Whatever goodwill might have been scraped up off the pavement has been washed away by the resentment that's built up over these past three years of his refusal to divide our joint assets. That's a loss--but not a surprising one as divorces go, I guess.
I have mourned the loss of our family profoundly and continue to do so.  No more "the four of us" at holiday dinners, vacations, the celebrations of  the milestones in our lives. We'll never again see a play together or take a walk. This is the aspect of divorce I find most devastating. It even surpasses being dumped for a younger woman. I've lost my family. You expect that in a divorce, right?
But it's the collateral damage that's making my heart ache this week. I didn't expect the grief over the loss of my mother-in-law--and I haven't lost her exactly since we still write letters to one another. But Sunday there's a family brunch  to celebrate her 90th birthday, and I'm not going.
Mr. Ex is going.
I have friendly relationships with all of my ex in-laws. They have demonstrated nothing but kindness and support toward me, but all of us know that it's not possible for Mr. Ex and me to be in the same room. It wouldn't be a birthday celebration anymore.
When I met Mr. Ex, I fell hard. My eighteen-year-old brain/body was certain it was fate. He was my soul mate, I was sure of it, and I remember explaining this theory of mine to his mother. She wasn't particularly impressed. Maybe because she wasn't sure she wanted me to be part of her son's life then. She might have even disliked me when Mr. Ex first brought me home. I was a wild girl tearing up the path her son had been on to become a Catholic priest. We pushed her 1970s Catholic midwestern envelope and insisted on sharing the same bed at her house although we weren't  married. It was kind of a mess. But she made us sandwiches for the road when we left.
My mother-in-law is prim and proper and unapproachable compared to my own wildly extroverted smoking, drinking, swearing, lipstick-wearing mother. I was a little afraid of her in the first couple of years of my relationship with Mr. Ex. Afraid of being judged, I guess. But over the years, we scratched out our common ground. We are both gardeners and have toured one another's yards and gardens with appreciation. We are both writers, simple cooks who love wholesome food, and lovers of thrift (though she puts me to shame in this category because rural Nebraska thrift is not glamor-sated L.A. thrift by any stretch of the imagination.)
I've never ever been to a 90th birthday celebration. I so wish I could be at hers.