Forever Grateful
My mother-in-law was the epitome of patience, endurance, and long suffering. She gave clear understanding to the cliche, silence is golden, able to keep to herself those poignant moments when life could have been more gracious to her. She married once—devoted her life in service and love to her family—worked hard until she was able to work no more and spent her dying days in an Alzheimer's wing. I remember driving to Pearl, Mississippi, with my husband to spend Christmas Day with her not too long before she died. We had celebrated our anniversary the day before, and we drove in the falling snow to the extended care home where she resided. Seeing is believing in most cases, and it was true, she was experiencing the winter of her life. Snow had begun to fall across the final pages of a book well written and a life well defined. The far-off look in her eyes was indication she was not there or that she longed to be someplace else. Oh, that we could intervene. Make it better. But th...