A Tribute To A Wonderful Mother-In-Law

I made this portrait of my mother-in-law at Christmas a few years ago—age 96.  
I think this is a wonderful representation of her spirit.  God rest her soul.

I am posting this the morning of March 15, 2024.  Later today we will be having an interment service for my mother-in-law.  At 99 years and 7 months (at that age she gets credit for every month she lived), Hazel Evelyn Tripp quietly passed away last Tuesday morning.  It might sound strange but my wife and I are happy for her.  I’ll explain.

I am one of those very fortunate sons-in-law who had a terrific mother-in-law.  I’ve known her for one month shy of 50 years.  That’s longer than I knew my mother or father.  My mother died when I was 45 and my father when I was 48 years of age.  I will say up front that I will miss my mother-in-law dearly.  I loved her as I did my own mother as she always treated me as one of her own children.  I believe that to be rare in today’s world.

Hazel grew up on a small family farm in eastern North Carolina.  As family members are required to do, she worked long and hard on the farm.  She planted and picked tobacco, which was the main cash crop in her youth.  She learned to cook, sew and keep house.  Since her mother didn't like beef, her diet consisted of a lot of pork and ham.  For you older readers, you should remember that we were always told to stay away from pork and ham as it contained too much fat and would lead to an early death.  Not in her family's case as Hazel's mother also lived to 98 years of age.  Good genes, I would say.

After high school, she married my father -in-law, Joseph Samuel Tripp, and they had four children, my wife being the third.  The family was a no nonsense, hard working, Christian-based family.  Seeing how solid and down to earth the family was I married into it and became a member.  Hazel's important role most of her adult life was that of a mother and housewife.  She nurtured, raised and provided for her husband and children.  But also she was a wonderful seamstress, eventually working in an upscale store as one of their premier seamstresses.  She primarily made and altered wedding dresses.  In fact, she made my wife's wedding dress.  She taught Sunday school and was an active member of her church for decades, singing in the choir and bringing delicious home-cooked dishes for all of the events held by the church.  Hazel was as good a human being who walked on this planet and all of us who knew and loved her are better off for her being in our lives.

Since my mother-in-law’s passing, many people have asked my wife and how we are doing.  Frankly, we are fine—for several reasons.  The most important reason to us is that my mother-in-law is no longer living a miserable life.  For the past several years she has been miserable.  Sadly.  She didn’t deserve to be miserable.  She deserved better.  She had professed wanting to leave this world as all but a couple of her friends are gone, she was largely confined to her room in an assisted living facility and no longer had a life she deemed worth continuing.  She’s told us that on more than one occasion.  Secondly, in the past year her health had declined significantly.  We watched that happen and it was heartbreaking as, I suspect, many of you have experienced with one of your own family members.  Declining health is not something she had ever known throughout her lifetime.

Seven years ago this month at age 92, as she was retrieving one of those large heavy olive green plastic, wheeled trash cans (bins), almost bigger than she was, a gust of wind hit the can, blew it over, knocked her down and fell on her.  She laid in her driveway (she was still living independently, driving, shopping, going to the grocery store, etc., with her mind sharp as a tack) for over an hour in severe pain with what we later found out was the top of her femur (hip) fractured until a workman pulled up into the driveway next door and heard her feeble cries for help.  He called an ambulance and then called my wife and I.  We then met her at the emergency room (ER).  At first the X-rays didn’t show a break but an MRI the next day clearly showed a fracture at the top of the femur where it changes direction.  In the ER we were talking and it was then she told me that she had never had an antibiotic in her life!  Are you kidding me?  At 92?  My wife and I started thinking back and my wife could not recall her mother EVER being sick except for a short bout of the shingles in the late 1970s.  Not even a cold.  She had surgery and within several weeks she was out dancing again with her young, 80-something friends.  As I said, a remarkable woman.

I posted this image last August on her 99th birthday.  Just by the look of her at the top of the page
and compared to how her hands look here, you can tell that time has taken a toll on her body.
She was in a physical rehabilitation center on this birthday because she had fallen out of bed but
we did our best to have a birthday celebration for her in her room. (click to enlarge)

This is when my wife and I (primarily my wife but I tried to support her and be as helpful in every way possible) took over all things about her life and we promised to look after her.  I offered that she was always welcome to live with us if she wanted.  She told us she didn’t want to live with any of her children.  She wanted to remain as independent as possible.  We vowed that we would always ensure she was well taken care of, no matter what.  We kept that promise right up until Tuesday morning.

Unfortunately, on Father’s Day that same year, only a couple of months later, her leg collapsed and the femur broke again.  This time it was because the doctor who did the first surgery didn't do it correctly, according to his partner in the same medical practice.  She had her second surgery and, again, in several weeks she was out dancing again.  Remarkable.  Nothing could keep her down, evidently.

Tragically, the next year she broke the other femur as she collapsed in her living room.  But she remained positive and recovered.  That is when my wife temporarily moved in with her for a total of 28 weeks and eventually told her she could no longer live by herself.  That was really hard for her.  We did the research, found an assisted living facility that we felt was a place we wouldn’t mind going if we had to, signed the papers on her behalf and became her responsible parties, got her things cleared out of her house with the help of her brother and sold the house.

Fast forward over the next 6 years.  My wife and I basically put our lives on hold and my wife, who is a true angel, did so much to make sure her mom was in the best position possible.  She took over her finances, paid her bills, took her to her doctor’s appointments, picked up her prescriptions, took her out for lunch and brief shopping excursions, brought her comfort food, ate dinners with her, ran interference whenever anything encountered a glitch, did her  laundry, washed her hair and on and on and on.  As I said, my wife is an angel on this earth.

As you would expect from someone approaching 100 years old, the body sort of starts to wear out.  We watched her slowly physically deteriorate but at the same time mentally stay sharp.  That made things worse in a lot of ways.  The last six months have been tough both for Hazel and for us as we watched things more quickly go downhill.  Two weeks ago, she was in the hospital twice and after coming home the second time, we knew that the end was getting close.  Over the course of the past few days, my mother-in-law was a mere shadow of herself, largely unconscious and just existing as her failing heart kept beating.  Finally, it could pump no more and Hazel slipped away, without fear, pain or discomfort.  She was “going home.”

You see we are happy for her as she has been miserable the past few years and we realized we’ve been grieving for her and her life as she once lived it with vibrancy, a Christian spirit and vigor, right along with her.  So her death has been a relief to her and to us.  No more misery for this wonderful mother-in-law of mine.  No more heartbreak.

I sincerely hope you have someone in your of which you can write similar sentiments.  My life has been richer because of her and, as I mentioned above, I will miss her dearly.  Rest in peace mom.

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

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