DAUGHTER-IN -LAW

U know this evil mother-in-law myth that permeates our society is not a reality in my world.
I look around me and i can`t see any of my friends that have this problem be it they have daughters or sons-in-law..........in fact sometimes the in-laws are closer to the dreaded mothers-in-law than their own children.......
My daughter-in-law is not from my culture but i can safely say she is a honorary Jamaican because although born and grown in New York no one has a better Jamaican accent than her, or wants to live in Jamaica more than her. The story goes that she came to Jamaica with her father when she was a young girl. On returning home she would only listen to BOB MARLEY and tried her best to lock her hair. Where she got that from staying at the Half Moon Hotel, GOD only knows....... The locks didn`t work out but spirit gave her a Jamaican husband.........meanwhile my son wanted a woman like his mother but without her hips.........I guess he also wanted a New Yorker as when my husband and i were returning home from living in New York, my son who was only 5 years old at the time, informed us he didn`t want to come as Jamaica is for a vacation...... Well he got his New Yorker and she came without hips........... They prove that Spirit really comes to your aid when u KNOW what u want.......
As a result of this link up, I got myself a daughter. I already have 3 "daughters" all around the same age of my daughter-in-law, although not mine by birth they are Auntie Pat's children....well here came number 4. The first thing she did was call me PATRICIA,all my daughters call me" PATRICIA " because Auntie Pat has been taken by all and sundry (even the 50 year old chef at one of the hotels calls me Auntie Pat)......How did she know that?
She fit in perfectly and we bonded over our love for shoes .....handbags played a close second so we were joined at the hip with our shopping habits.
Having similar tastes in most things helped and loving my son made it even easier for me to bond with her as she certainly makes sure he is not one of the unkempt men i just spoke about in my last blog and she always wants what's best for him....How can a mother not love that?
I also love women who do not allow their men to walk over them with "yes dear" being the first thing out of their mouths......That said we settled down to forge a solid relationship with our love being real and genuine.
This last trip i realized that our relationship has really grown over the years, it is really between both of us and not the 3 of us. Things i want him to know and assumed he had been told, i found out that i will have to tell him as our relationship is just that, OUR relationship.
When I had my last health challenge, she knew just as I did that he couldn`t deal with it so she was the one that came. She being a nurse (now an entrepreneur with her June Plum collection of kids clothes) keeps abreast with all what's happening and tells him what he wants to know which is nothing, he just wants to see me jumping up and down hale and hearty....and admonishes me that "nuh bodder wid it u know,nuh bodder wid it at all " ... that's Jamaicanese for I musn`t bother to get sick and die.......
I find most of us mothers have a little jealousy, so letting go is a little difficult....But the secret is that their relationship is not our business ..........we have our own lives, we need to live it and not live through our children....... we should not offer relationship advice unless we are asked and even then we need to be careful........
I keep far from their relationship. It has nothing to do with me and i don`t take sides. I listen when she needs an ear as that's what she really wants, someone to vent to ,not someone to take sides..................She is his partner not mine. That's who he chose and i thank him for making a choice that i find so easy to live with.
Whatever the future holds, she will always be my child as guess what? She is the mother of my heart. NAIYAH!
And what a job she is doing there...........THANK U KATE!

Photo taken by Linda Ferrer, Naiyah`s other grandmother.......she is Mima, i`m Nehneh, both of us named by Naiyah......see i didn`t only get a daughter, i got a whole family too.......................