In Passing

Goodbye Margie About 15 years ago I found myself alone with my mother-in-law in her Virgina home.  She'd stayed behind to prepare Sunday dinner while everyone else went  gallivanting.  I was watching the Redskin game, and she would wander in from time to time.  I assumed she was just being hospitable— until the Redskins were burned by a long pass play.  I uttered an oath; she cried out, "That corner back [name] has been the weak link in that defense all year!"  WTF?  I was truly gob-smacked by that bit of arcane analysis by this mother of my wife (who thinks a line backer is a Detroit Lions fan (she's from Michigan).  "How in God's name did you know that?" I asked. "I know a lot of things," she responded with a twinkle. And she did.  We buried her next to her husband Dan yesterday.  She outlived him by 19 years.  She has surely gone straight to Heaven.  No purgatory time at all.  I am most fortunate;  my in-laws were and are some of the best people I've ever known.  I told mother-in-law jokes, but they were bereft of any rancor.  I loved the woman, and her husband. Looking around the church hall after the funeral I saw her legacy.  Three generations of the most beautiful offspring I've ever seen.  And all of them as sweet and kind as she was.  That's a fine legacy.  R.I.P. Margie.