She was the reason we have mother-in-law jokes.

When she first learned that her only child was engaged to a mere mortal, she shouted
disparaging remarks about my ethnicity, telling her son,

“I think you could have done better than to pick someone whose last
name ends in a vowel!”

After our wedding, I asked her what she would like me to call her.
“Mrs. Bush, of course!” she emphatically replied.

Offended by her impersonal choice, I resorted to calling her “Oh”
(As in, “Oh, would you like more coffee?”)
until our children were born and we all referred to her as Nana.

When in the market for new kitchen appliances, she asked me if I could procure a “hot” refrigerator for her,
my surname leading her to presume that I had connections to organized crime.

Never during our 19-year marriage did she refer to me by my real first name,
instead creatively opting for more vintage L names—
Lenore and Lavinia were among her favorites.

While reaching for a second helping of my trademark entree, homemade lasagna, she
turned to her son and commented, “You must really miss my cooking!”

At Christmas, this financially flush woman gifted her granddaughters with toys from Happy Meals, having eaten the boxed chicken nuggets herself.

Had she existed as a TV sit-com character, I would have eyerolled and dismissed her
barbed lines as straining credulity.

When she died, I felt as if if she had never lived.

Today, though, I am a grandmother and a mother-in-law., and softened vignettes of my
former tormentor take me by surprise when they infiltrate my mind’s surface.

Decades-old memories of “Mrs. Bush’s” brouhahas and bigotry guided my efforts to
blaze a different trail in my own life,
in roles bringing me deep joy.

My mother-in-law helped me understand that I can rise above discrimination and
mistreatment, sometimes even finding humor in it,
without making excuses for her behavior.

She would rage if she realized that I actually learned some life lessons
from her vitriol.

Knowing that, I chuckle.