Family-in-Law
I have what I consider to be a strange relationship with most of my family. I am not so egotistical as to think my relationships of this kind are any more or less strange than most peoples’ but I am blessed/cursed by a willingness to write about it in an open and hopefully honest way. Trust me, I am well aware that at this moment in this story, every one of my family members and close friends is doing the equivalent of making a sign of the cross in hopes that I do not go where they think I will damage rather than help family relations. I recognize that moth to the flame tendency that I have, but I also prefer to be fearless and unburden my soul rather than stew like a crockpot over things I see, hear and feel.
Anyone who reads my blog regularly knows that I think Kim is perfect. I don’t say that lightly. Perfection is a near impossibility in life, but she is as close as it gets. I literally have zero complaints in our marriage and we have now officially been together fifteen years, so I think that says a lot. No one who knows me thinks I am insensitive to my surroundings, and they know I would call it out fearlessly if Kim was less than perfect, but she is not. My youngest son at the age of ten and with over five years of psychotherapy under his belt by than asked her pointedly and openly if she was an angel. That has become a favorite family story, but both a true one and a telling one. To further prove the point, I have two ex-wives that would agree with the assessment and I assure you, neither would come close to calling me perfect.
My kids are next into the breach for consideration. I love my children unconditionally as is my desire as a good father and as is the righteous path for any parent in my view. I would use a slightly different explanation to define them collectively rather than declare them perfect. They can do nothing to alter my love for them and in that way they are perfect to me, but I believe my obligation as a parent is to guide them towards perfection and as such I have had to call them out at various times as needing course correction and thus being less than perfect. They are all three very different and I accept those differences as the strengthening aspect of diversity that makes the world a better place by magnifying collective strength in exchange for individual perfect roundness. Since my children are this year thirty-eight, thirty-four and twenty-five years old, I no longer have much right or need to course-correct them and acknowledge that I have done what I can do and they are on their own to set their own courses. I am here to listen and help, but I think its time that the guidance counselor in me retire permanently.
The significant others of my children are all three wonderfully well-suited for each of them and all both likable and respect-worthy for their own reasons. On the theory that all a parent should want is happiness for their child, I would argue that each of my children has chosen a partner that seems to make them happy and who seems to care about them in the right way to make me feel that my children have chosen well. It helps that I actually like each and every one of these partners and I suspect that they feel OK about me since I try to make it a policy to not interfere or overtax their existence (hovering and such) while still being there for support as needed and appropriate.
I will not extend this analysis to my two lovely granddaughters other than to say that as different as they both seem to be, they are both perfect. They seem to love and support one another in all the right ways so what’s not perfect about that?
My sisters are next on the list. We were a family of three kids and a mother. The absence of a father from the scene made the motherly bonds that much stronger, but the motherly strength and independence tendency made that all a loose confederation at best. My mother is gone and we all three respect and mourn her to the max in our own ways. We all love one another and would do anything for each other, but we have been trained to live our own lives and we have done just that. I now live thirty minutes from one and a four hour drive from the other. Coronavirus has not changed anything for us as siblings since we only see each other occasionally anyway and that seems to work fine for us. Their spouses of many years (unlike me, they chose for keeps and have stayed married) have been on the scene respectively for forty-seven and forty-two years respectively and are fine men in their own ways. At least they are fine enough to have my sisters each stay the course with them and since I know no more than that, I take that as enough evidence to declare them as such.
I have only one cousin (actually a first cousin once-removed, so the son of my cousin) that I am close to. I have several others that I know and am friendly with and then there are a few that I am less friendly and therefore less connected with. For the one I am close to and his wife and children, everyone in my family fights to be included with them in any events we plan. They are favorites to all. I call them country mice in a most endearing way since they are from the old homestead town. Well, everyone wants these country mice in residence whenever we can. I take that as a sign that it is not accidental that I am close to them more so than the others.
Now I get into the dangerous territory of my in-laws. I don’t know exactly why it is or should be dangerous territory, but it simply is. I guess it is human nature to feel that our first families are more important than our inherited in-law families. Few of us is so perfect as human beings as to harbor no differences at all in closeness or importance. I will use perfect Kim as my benchmark. There is no one in my family that does not put her on the first team. She, in turn, genuinely loves all of them. I will not be so presumptuous as to suggest that she loves them all the same amount, but the abundance of her love makes the measurement somewhat irrelevant. Lesser love from Kim is greater than maximum love from many. In other words, its all good, so she asymptotically approaches perfection and becomes the standard.
I have had the normal array of issues with my in-laws, so much normal that they are not worth discussing here or anywhere. I will declare that they are not perfect to me and that I am not perfect to them. But that’s OK and I’m not sure that is a level that is even otherwise attainable. What I do declare quite openly is that I love my in-laws, each and every one. That constitutes an array of two siblings, two in-law spouses and two children and their significant others and two grandchildren….so a total of ten. My list for Kim is bigger depending on who gets included, not that its a quantitative contest. I love them first and foremost because they are so very dear to perfect Kim, but that is not all. I have gotten to know them all as individual (the grandkids, as mentioned, are perfect by birthright and need no knowing to attain that status). No surprise, they are all different from one another, but no less worthy of love. There isn’t a bad apple in the bunch and I would say there was if I thought there was.
Sharon and Woo Ferrell are amazing people. The stories of Sharon showing her younger sister Kim the world are as heartwarming as they come. As an adventurous global flight attendant and then as a military wife she deserves a Medal of Honor for life experience. Woo was a good old Georgia boy who flew naval helicopters in Vietnam and Antarctica and is a military hero of great distinction who went on to teach and encourage young men into more productive paths. Nothing about their stories are ordinary or nondescript.
Jeff and Lisa are equally amazing. Jeff is my best friend, hands down. We speak daily and it is said we pick at each other like brothers that neither of us otherwise had. Lisa is the kindest soul I have met. She is kind to all animals and takes such unwavering good care of Jeff that she is the best example of a dedicated spouse. Kim and I both feel that Lisa and Jeff would do anything for us without asking. They are selfless and, as such, worthy of every respect we can give them.
Josh and Haj and Will and Ashley are the children that Kim never had. They occupy a special place in her heart and when they think of their Aunt Kim they have nothing but good and loving thoughts. Josh FaceTimes Kim almost every day with his children to give them a piece of what she gave him growing up. Both of these boys and their families are cut from the cloth of their stand-up father and tidied up and motivated by their mother. They are strong and proud men that are both caring and thinking souls that work hard and play hard. They are fun to be around and what finer quality than that is there in life.
This is the longest blog story I have ever published and I am sending it as a Sunday Extra to get it out there. It was prompted by something I wrote inadvertently offending one of my in-laws and I thought it necessary to say all this for the record. I had to cover my first family first to as not to upend that part of the apple cart, but my purpose was to say that I appreciate and love all of my family and find myself so very fortunate to have the great in-law family that I have.