Ode to My Mother-In-Law

Some people believe that we turn into our parents. This future mom to be hopes that is not the case.

I knew this day would come sooner or later

but I didn’t listen to myself, or my mother. I

look down at my wedding band, “I am a good wife,

I will be a good mother.” I think to myself.

 

We should be celebrating and telling everyone

we know about this new chapter. I know the first

thing my parents will do when I tell them, after six

years of longing, they’ll finally be grandma

and grandpa.

 

But what will our baby call you?

Your son has called you every name

in the book, even inventing some I’ve

never heard of. He’s never said, “I’m going

to call her today, and tell her I forgive her.”

 

He’s being distant, going to the park early in the

morning. I know he’s doing more than running there;

he’s watching, learning how to lift a tiny child up

from the swings or tell them lies like, “Don’t worry,

everything will be okay. You don’t have to cry.”

 

You’re the reason he sometimes cries in his sleep

and I can hear him saying, “Please don’t leave me.”

You’re the reason why he walks fast when we

pass the dairy products; he refuses to eat the cheaper

government cheese. He doesn’t smile on Mother’s Day

when we visit my side of the family, but he always

calls my parents to see how they’re doing.

 

Without you, he wouldn’t do our dishes every

night or know which laundry soap is cheapest.

If he had my childhood he would’ve learned to read

at three, ride a bike, and gotten tucked in every night.

He wouldn’t have gotten into fights in middle school

or learned to play baseball from the afterschool program

that would eventually lead him to college, or to me.

 

So this miniature human, growing every day

will know that his or her father loves them.

Without you, he learned to be caring, to be

loyal and mature; he learned to be a parent.