MIL

MIL is shorthand for mother-in-law. As of today, mine has been gone for 5 years. It does not seem like it has been that long.

Married at 16, mother-in-law was a pretty, vivacious girl. No one really knows when the specter of mental illness began to rear its head, but within a few years time, mother-in-law was diagnosed as "manic-depressive." Treatment for this illness in the fifties was not particularly effective. The available drugs caused terrible side effects. Electro-convulsive therapy helped somewhat, but the benefits were short lived.

My husband remembers being shipped off with his 4 siblings to his grandmother's house when his mother would have to go to the State Hospital at Whitfield for treatment.

When I married my husband, I thought that mother-in-law liked me OK. I did not find out till we had been married almost 20 years that she did not. I know some of it was her illness talking, and some of it was the fact that I helped father-in-law move her to a retirement apartment when her behavior made it too dangerous for them to remain under the same roof. My husband became her caregiver and this caused stress in our marriage as well.

I wish I could say that I miss mother-in-law. I felt sorry for her. I tried to be kind to her. I loved her as much as she was capable of being loved.

But, I don't miss her.