Can't compete with a baby: 17 October 2007

After coming home from a 4-hour-long condo board meeting, I was tired and spent. But I couldn’t help but feel a tad sad when my wife told me that my mother-in-law might come to New York. Don’t get me wrong. I love my mother-in-law. But she has never visited our house since my wife and I got married nine-and-a-half years ago. She has a valid reason, in that she’s in her 70s and she says she can’t bear a long 14-hour plane ride.

About a little over a year ago, her leg began bothering her and she resorted to crutches. All the more an understandable reason for not coming. She recently began exercizes to strengthen her leg. Now, she says she no longer needs crutches. But get this: yesterday, she suddenly said she may come to visit us in New York. The reason is also perfectly reasonable. She wants more time with her new grandson. But I can’t help but feel saddened that she never thought her son-in-law was a good enough reason to visit in all these nine years. Sure, I’ve heard stories about how a grandchild broke the ice between a spouse and the parents-in-law who had never accepted the spouse but how all-is-forgiven now that a grandkid was there. But I never thought I’d get that same feeling.