I'm glad I know her

It's the 7th Day of Thanksgiving, and my mother-in-law's birthday!

I'm thankful that I've had the chance to know her. We didn't start out all that smoothly. Rich was recently divorced when we met, and his whole family thought he was re-marrying too soon. (We're married 27 years now. Ha, and nyeh!) I have to say Dorothy and I had a guarded relationship for many years, but a few years ago we finally kind of became friends. And I value her, and her experience and unique perspective, so much!

She was born Dorothy Kiolbasa, to a family who had come to the U.S. from Poland and Bohemia (which was an actual country then, and not just a lifestyle). Born and raised in Chicago, she met and married Joe Osman, and the two of them moved into his parents' basement apartment. Her own mother-in-law welcomed her with open arms, and the young couple lived there until they bought their first house. (And, BTW, I'm sorry I never got to meet Grandma Osman. She sounds like a woman I would have enjoyed knowing! I'll tell you a few stories about her sometime.)

Dorothy worked for IBM in Chicago doing and training others in key punch, and did pretty much the same thing at Brachs Candy Company. She raised two boys with a husband who was a traveling salesman (no, really!). She and Joe scrimped and saved for years, planning to and eventually buying their own business. She recalls Saturday nights from that time when they'd be sitting on the front porch watching people drive by, on their way to a night out, when she and Joe weren't even willing to spend the money to go to the movies. That's how serious they were about their future. BTW, those people who were driving by later wondered how the two of them had saved enough to buy their own business. Answer: If you don't spend money, you have more of it for later. (You might want to write that down somewhere.)

Taken at Costco. Dorothy LOVES Costco.

They bought a hardware store in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, when Rich was 16, moving there from Chicago. They worked together to run it, enjoying the store but not small-town life. (They also brought a percolator home from the store, which they still use every day.) They kept the store—which must have been profitable enough, I guess—for a couple of years, then sold it and bought Schlosser Tool & Machinery in Denver. They both worked there until they retired, and enjoy Denver a lot (except for the high-altitude cooking; it takes 45 minutes to boil potatoes, which is really ridiculous if you ask me).

Dorothy has always loved to ski, which might have something to do with how she's felt about Denver. She told me recently, "Skiing down a mountain, the cold wind blowing in my face…that's the best feeling in the world." She's had some health issues that have made Joe concerned enough about falls to resist (like an immovable object) going skiing the last few years. Personally, I'm campaigning for her to ski again, with some appropriate assistance. We have to learn to work around our health difficulties. When I had breast cancer, between my mastectomy and reconstruction, while I was having to stuff one side of my (very large) brassiere, Dorothy suggested my new nickname should be Won Hung Low. (Yes, I did laugh at that, long and loud.) One adjusts but keeps going.

She's always had a gift for knowing things that were going to happen, and the whole family (me included) has always taken her "hunches" very seriously. She once told Joe, as they were leaving for a vacation, that she would be coming back lying down (she sustained a broken pelvis in a car wreck while they were traveling and was transported home by ambulance), and that they wouldn't be using the boat he was working to get ship shape, at least not for the weekend outing they had invited people to (his mother died that night). Because of her, and her uncanny accuracy, I learned to respect my own hunches and gut feelings. If it's nagging at me, bothering me, there's a reason. Pay attention!

They both love to travel, and have been more places than I even have the nerve to hope to see, but it's getting harder now that they're getting older. She's done bunka (a Japanese form of needlework) for decades, and until just recently taught classes in it at the local community center. She's taught me some things in the kitchen (I think about her every time I make grilled sandwiches, and she has a couple of fantastic cranberry salad recipes), and a few things about growing old. I'm glad we get along now, and I look forward to seeing her, though I don't make it up there as often as I'd like.

So today, I'm thankful for the family I married into, and the mother-in-law who—I hope!—got a nearly-daughter out of the deal.