The stories shared with me about Lena, my husband's mother, were extraordinary. I heard many of them over the years, tales told to me by her son and his father, accounts that were often shocking, sometimes heart-wrenching, and always fascinating.
However, I only met my mother-in-law Lena one time. She was visiting Detroit and wanted to know her only granddaughter, who was almost three at the time.
I invited her over. When my husband was told his mother was coming to visit, he arranged to be elsewhere.
She'd been described to me as beautiful in her youth, but she looked like any ordinary grandmother. I took that as a testament to the wild life she'd led.
She brought a quilt she'd made for my daughter-every stitch by hand. Melanie still has it, and since Lena's death, there's a ghost story attached.
Lena burned her candle at both ends, lived her life the way she chose, and left it all too soon.
