What Are You Doing Here?
I have been low contact with my mother-in-law for a few years. My husband is not. I don’t relay any information to her, and I make everything go through my husband. The entire family states that the mother-in-law has a hearing problem, but it seems to be just my words that get twisted by her. My mom passed years before I met my husband. My mom loved the holidays and always had poinsettias around the house at Christmas. To help keep my mom close to me at Christmas, I also have poinsettias around the house.
It’s because of this that my husband knew the gift he found to give me from our kids was perfect. It was a tabletop wooden angel that had poinsettias on her dress and was holding garland of poinsettias. It was perfect and I loved it as soon as I saw it. My father-in-law passed just before Christmas, and it has been hard on all of us. He was a wonderful man. Since we have the youngest children in the family, my husband wanted my mother-in-law to be there to watch the kids open gifts Christmas morning.
I was fine with this. She would come over early and the rest of the in-laws would be over later in the afternoon. We stopped exchanging gifts between the adults years ago and just exchanged between the kids. However, I wanted my mother-in-law to have a couple things to open, since she would be with us when we opened gifts. My kids made her ornaments and glittered pinecones, and we got her some mints that she liked. It was a couple of small things like that. When I opened the angel from my kids that day, I loved it. I went over to the kitchen table to take it out of the box and really look at it. My mother-in-law happened to be sitting there at the time.
I asked her if she saw the angel they gave me for Christmas, and I explained why I loved it so much and how it reminded me of my mom. The angel even had my mom’s hair color. I explained how it meant so much to me and that I would probably keep it out all year long as a reminder of my mom. I then left it on the table. I should add that my mother-in-law also saw me unwrap the gift and watched as I hugged my children after opening it. Anyway, I left it sitting on the table because everyone else started arriving. It did get a little hectic with gift exchanges between the kids and we ended up outside for a bit. When I came back, my angel had disappeared. I thought it might have gotten moved to make room at the table and figured it would show up. Ohhhh…..it showed up….at my mother-in-law’s house.
I haven’t seen it there, my husband did. My mother-in-law called a few days after Christmas and asked my husband to come in for a bit to do some things around her house. He then brought her back to our house for dinner because she wanted to see our kids. While we’re eating dinner, my mother-in-law gets a big smile on her face and is telling me that she loves her new angel and she wants me to have it when she passes. At this point, I don’t realize that she is talking about my angel that I’ve been looking for all over and trying to find.
She then mentioned how she loves the poinsettias on it. That’s what got me to look up and see that smug grin on her face. I looked at my husband and he gave me the look that “we’ll talk about it later.” After she went back home, my husband and I discuss it. He says when he walked into her house, he immediately saw it and did a double-take on it. My husband usually has good boundaries when it comes to his mother. This time he didn’t.
He said she loves it so much and with his father just having passed, he doesn’t want to take it from her. He truly believes that she misheard me and my mother-in-law thinks it was a gift to her from our kids. WHAT?!?! She watched me unwrap it. Why would I unwrap it if it was meant for her?!? She really didn’t hear anything I said of how it reminded me of my mother?!? Instead, he wants to find a duplicate online for me.
I asked why we couldn’t just buy her a different angel and he can go trade her for my angel. He doesn’t want to be insensitive since she just lost her husband and she obviously wanted the angel. I would go myself and do it, but I don’t think I’ll get a good reaction from her. She’ll probably answer the door and say “WHAT are you doing here?” She’s done that to me before when I’ve gone to her house to help take her to a doctor’s appointment. Story credit: Reddit / LSEAFE