In Praise of My French Mother-in-Law
She may be gone, but she is not forgotten
The older I get, the more I realize how precious the so-called “little moments” of life are — what William Blake referred to as “eternity in a grain of sand.”
A few years ago, upon visiting my French mother-in-law, Henriette, I had many of these moments — each one of them humbling, meaningful, and unforgettable. Below, I share these vignettes with you, along with a request for you do whatever you can to notice these kinds of moments in your own life and by so doing more thoroughly honor the magnificence of your own family.
THE SIGN
The small sign under my mother-in-law’s front door bell in France says “J. Pouget.”
“J” is the first initial of her long-gone husband’s first name, “Jean” — a kind man who died 40 years ago after a lifetime of working in a Citroen factory and dreaming of the time he would one day retire.
The two of them met as young children during the war in a Catholic orphanage where Henriette lived for 12 long years.
Jean would travel once each month by train from his orphanage more than two hours away to visit his sisters — young girls who had become Henriette’s best friends.
