Mother-in-law and Daughter-in-law

The searing pain of loss envelops us completely in the days and weeks and months following the death of our beloved, whether that person was our son, daughter, brother, sister, husband, wife, daddy or mommy, or significant other. The pain effectively keeps us focused on ourselves and the unique relationship we had with the person who is now gone forever from our earthly lives. It is hard to cope with our own feelings as we traverse the minefield of new, raw grief. It is harder yet to acknowledge the profound loss and separation that others feel in the aftermath. 

The searing pain of loss envelops us completely in the days and weeks and months following the death of our beloved, whether that person was our son, daughter, brother, sister, husband, wife, daddy or mommy, or significant other. The pain effectively keeps us focused on ourselves and the unique relationship we had with the person who is now gone forever from our earthly lives. It is hard to cope with our own feelings as we traverse the minefield of new, raw grief. It is harder yet to acknowledge the profound loss and separation that others feel in the aftermath.

In some families, one troubling secondary impact of the death of a married soldier is the stress it places on the relationship between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Arguably the two people most profoundly affected by the death may find themselves at odds with one another as a result of that stress. 

An open letter to my daughter-in-law…

Even as I know that you will never forget my son, and he will always be a part of you, I am keenly aware that the day may come when you fall in love again and in sense, he will be replaced. Fair or not, there’s a place inside of me that recognizes that you might have another partner but I will never have another son.

As much as I want to mother you, especially during what may be the hardest loss you will ever face, please forgive me and try to understand if there are moments I pull away from you. My anguish is so awful at times that your pain is simply more than I can bear. It’s not you; during those times I can’t stand anyone else’s pain either.

Please remember that we are his family too. It’s very hurtful to hear you talk about his family without including his parents, siblings, and the extended family, all of whom loved him very much.

If I appear to be prying into your financial affairs, I hope you will understand that it’s because I care and because I want your money to serve you as well as it possibly can. My son is no longer here to protect and provide for you but his financial legacy can assure that you can live in comfort as you begin to heal. You know he would be angry with both of us if his death also resulted in unnecessary financial hardship for you.  

As a married man, when my son died the decisions were yours to make, the benefits were assigned to you, the recognition of his service made to you, and the gestures of condolence addressed to you. And that is how it should be. But please understand there are times when I, as his mother, wish that the enormity of my loss would also be recognized and acknowledged. That does not mean I think my pain is somehow “worse” or that you should not be receiving the attention that comes when a soldier falls. It simply means that there is value and comfort in those gestures of condolence that I sometimes yearn for.

Please recognize that regardless of how long ago my son left his childhood home, he’s still my child and the years that he lived under my roof and I actively parented him are a core part of who I am. Given the man he was, I expected to have his care and support in my old age and his death robs me of significant parts of my future.

I feel that my life is the one that has drastically changed. The greatest pain that one can ever endure is the loss of their child. This to me seems so unfair! We are to be outlived by our children, not bury them. I feel that you in a way can “replace a husband” once you remarry but I can never replace my child. As painful as it will be for me, you may find love again – I on the other hand will never have another child. My son who was the best part of me is gone and I feel alone.

Thank you for indulging me during those moments when I speak of him as though he was a saint. You and I know better than anyone else in the world that he wasn’t perfect, but there are moments in my own healing when my heart somehow “remembers” in a different way than my head.

I recognize that you are the one that my son chose to create a future with. You are the one that nurtured him as a man and that he turned to for support before his death. You hold a part of him in your memories that I will never know. I am sorry that you lost part of yourself the day he died. Thank you for everything that you did to make him the man who will always be my hero.  

An open letter to my mother-in-law…

Please remember that your son wanted to be married to me. Whether or not I am the one you would have selected as your son’s partner, I am the one he chose. Trust that he made the right decision and that my willingness to marry him was a reflection of the extraordinary man that you helped create.

I knew your son as a man, not a boy. Although I treasure your stories and memories of my husband’s youth, please understand that my perspective is of a very different person. When I seek to describe my husband, it will be with anecdotes of his manhood. That doesn’t make your stories any less authentic, it simply means that he continued to accomplish, achieve, and aspire even after he left his childhood home.

Please remember that we are his family too. It’s very hurtful to hear you talk about his family without including his wife, children, and the extended in-law family, all of whom loved him very much.

If we had children together or if your son accepted my children from a previous relationship, I hope that you will continue to grandparent them and help keep their father’s memory alive in their heads and their hearts. If we did not have children, I hope that you will not use that to somehow diminish the significance of our relationship. I already hear people say, “Well, it’s not like you had children” as though that somehow makes my pain any less. Maybe we wanted to some day and that is yet another experience I will never have with him. If we had children maybe I would feel like a living part of him is still with me giving me a reason to get up in the morning. 

I am sincerely glad that my husband’s relationship with you as an adult was such that he could confide in you and seek your advice. Like any marriage, ours had its ups and downs and it may be that my husband sought your counsel when we had problems. As you well know, marriage is challenging under the best of circumstances and military life brings with it additional stresses. Please do not characterize our marriage as being rocky or suggest that we were on the verge of divorce. That feels like an attempt to diminish the significance of his death to me.

Please don’t play the “time card” with me. As measured by the number of years you lived under the same roof, it may be that you lived with him longer than I did but just as you loved him fiercely even before he was born, length of acquaintance does not equate with depth of feeling or enormity of loss.

I feel as though my life is the one that has drastically changed. I was the one he came home to at night, I was the one he called for comfort and now I am the one who lies alone in our bed. I feel as though you have your husband and family to confide in and to console you, whereas my rock is now gone. I cannot even imagine loving someone else right now. My best friend, my love, the best part of me is no longer here and I feel alone.

Thank you for indulging me during those moments when I speak of him as though he was a saint. You and I know better than anyone else in the world that he wasn’t perfect, but there are moments in my own healing when my heart somehow “remembers” in a different way than my head.

I recognize that you are the one who brought him into this world. You are the one who nurtured him as a child and raised him, giving him all the wonderful qualities and values that made him the man he became. You hold a part of him in your memories that I will never know. I am sorry that you lost part of yourself the day he died. Thank you for everything you did to make him the love of my life.       

By Stephanie Frogge: Stephanie Frogge holds a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice from Texas Christian University and a master’s in Theological Studies from Brite Divinity School. She is the assistant director of the Institute for Restorative Justice and Restorative Dialogue at the University of Texas at Austin. With more than thirty years of experience in the area of trauma response, Stephanie is the former National Director of Victim Services at Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and served two years as the Director of Peer Support Services for TAPS.