Me and My House: The Oasis

The Oasis

Oasis. /ō-ā′sĭs/

noun

A fertile or green area in a desert or wasteland, made so by the presence of water.

A situation or place preserved from surrounding unpleasantness; a refuge.

"an oasis of serenity amid chaos."

I’ve been trying to write something since My mother in law passed away last week. For me, writing doesn’t come on command, instead it wells up inside of me and only then can I express that bubbling over feeling into words and thoughts.

These particular words come from deeper place inside and feel complicated and raw, not quite yet ready for prime time.

My mother in law.

Sigh.

Angela.

My mother in law, Angela.

What do I say about a woman I’ve known for 33 years, who has helped to shape and mold me in the most important parts of my life and faith? How do I reflect on the role she played in my family and the lives of my husband and children?

Entering into the LeGare family at 21 she stood majestically tall amidst the rest of the crew. Outspoken, happy, opinionated, and just-so-much-fun, are all descriptions that fit her well. My father-in-law Phil, supporting her always, but ever so quietly, hovering in the background with his gentle manner and soft words.

She was an absolute force to be reckoned with.

When I was younger she was an intimidating woman to live in the shadow of. She could cook and clean, play tennis and golf, run a house like nobody’s business, and her faith was unshakeable. I didn’t think I’d ever live up to her standards, I still don’t. In my mind she is the yard stick that I measure myself against in countless ways.

I didn’t know at the time what she would come to mean to me or to my children. Do we ever realize the most important things when they are happening? I didn’t see that she would grow even more towering in my life not only as a mother-in-law, but as a grandmother and eventually a friend.

Fred and I were so young, so determined, so blissfully unaware of what we were taking on in raising ten children. Angela saw and anticipated every peril we would face as a young new family and helped support us along the way. She did this despite my opposition and insistence we could do it ourselves.

I can’t count the times when I was terribly ill with morning sickness and she and Phil would call and then ask if they could come and take the kids for a few days. It was a godsend to me, and my boys, then eventually my girls, who wound up referring to those days as trips to Gramaland. These excursions were a quasi Disney World for my children, where they would visit the local parks and beaches, be stuffed with cream puffs, and home made bread and cookies, given new clothes and toys, and lavished with all of her time and attention, and finally put to bed with readings of Sam the Firefly and Dr Suess, only to do it all over again the next day.

I needed those breaks. Even when I couldn’t admit it. She stepped into my life and filled in for me, what I was lacking. She pushed me to carry on and would tell me over and over that I could do it. I didn’t believe her. But somehow, she was right and I did do it.

I wanted Angela to like me and approve of me because I knew she was honest, which also meant that both her criticism and praise were refreshingly accurate, a rare trait to find in this world full of pretense. We had plenty of disagreements too, (As I write these words, I can hear her voice saying “Ellen, don’t be impertinent”) but mostly they were about minor things as in the most important things (faith/family) we saw things indistinguishably.

In my world she represented pure strength, which is so odd since she was also emotionally very fragile and tender, crying over a sweet song or pretty flowers handed to her by one of my children; and worrying endlessly over this or that family matter. She cried easily, copiously,and freely. She also knew herself and was nearly impossible to persuade to a different decision once she had made up her mind on a matter.

She was fiercely determined.

She had a fabulous sense of humor that has left the sound of her laughter imprinted on my heart. She loved to laugh and drank in the glory of nature in an enviable way. To go for a walk with Angela was to see nature in an absolute symphony of beauty. She knew the name of every flower, noticed each bird, and loved the smell of the rain on the earth.

And she loved being Catholic! On this point we were knit together. The Mass and rosary were a deep part of who she was. She loved the Eucharist and found such solace in daily mass. Perhaps the singular accomplishment I can boast of is that I introduced her to the Mercy Chaplet when Fred and I were newly married. She told me that initially she decided against it, but while visiting Myrtle Beach with Phil and worrying over her life as she walked on the beach, she had prayed it and had a powerful experience of Gods love and ever afterwards she was very devoted.

When Phil took sick the first time years back, and wound up in rehab our relationship changed. She wasn’t handling it well. Diane called me and said “look Elle, I don’t know how else to say it, she needs you” and so Fred and I drove up. I pushed her that week or so, and forced her to drive him to appointments, and get his walker in and out of the car, and cook dinner again. She was so irritated at my insistence. The following weeks as he improved and she became his caregiver, she thanked me endlessly for reminding her of what she was made of. It was then that I knew she could do it even when she didn’t. I was right. And she took such good care of him.

I speak here of only a few of my own remembrances, knowing these are woven into a tapestry of Angela’s life that includes so many more children and grandchildren and great grandchildren with their own stories of how she breathed her life and love into their worlds and formed memories in them that will abide forever. She lived for us. She loved us. She has lavished her time on us until we have grown so very accustomed to our world being filled with her presence whenever we needed her. She prayed her rosary for us til her dying moments and left this world with it woven into her hands as tightly as it had been woven into her life.

She was an oasis for all of us in our own personal deserts of life. A fertile loving reprieve in the midst of a harsh world.

Next week we will travel back up to Hopewell. We will gather without her and feel the void in her spot in this earth. But she will be felt there too, even in her absence- in her now empty house- in her flower beds that will desperately need tending- in her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren that will have no one to tuck them in, or read them a story, or fill them with cookies and simply delight over them and the splendid miracles each of them actually are.

And in those aching moments we will find her and treasure what she treasured most- each other.