What was a trip that changed your life?

I have subscribed to the Friday Letters blog for over a year.  Sometimes I look at the question and think, “I have absolutely no idea how I would answer that question!”  or I think the question is totally and completely not relative for me, my life or my children.  However, when I read her question for this week, the answer immediately popped into my mind. Edited...Bev has made a change on her blog and now does have permalinks.  This was question #171.  :)  Visit her blog, subscribe to her blog, admire her photography.  I do.  :)  

What was a trip that changed your life?

I prayed a lot on the nine-plus-hour drive across north Mississippi and Alabama. My husband had said, “How they respond to her will determine whether they ever see her – and us – again.”  I wasn’t just nervous, I was scared.  “Will they love her? Will they think she’s cute? What will I do if they are indifferent?”  We’d not spoken to my husband’s parents in years – ten, to be exact. I take that back: he had called to tell them we were expecting and received a very cool, “Well, that’s nice” in response.  And then he called again to tell them their granddaughter had arrived after a troublesome labor and c-section.  Again, a cool “that’s nice” reduced my husband into a sobbing mess at my side in the recovery room…I was still angry over that one…no one makes my husband cry without feeling my wrath.  In one respect, I was ready for them to be cool to us – and to our precious baby girl. I was loaded for bear.  But on the other hand, I desperately wanted my husband’s parents to love this baby as much as we did (still do, actually!).  To love her as much as my family loved her. 

We pulled into their driveway early that April evening, took a deep breath and walked to the door.  The windows and storm door were open.  Brad knocked.  His mom looked up from the nightly news and said, “Yeah. Come on in, it’s open.”  We walked through the butterfly-filled formal living room, past the wall that divided that room and the family room where the TV was.  Brad said, “This is your granddaughter, Elizabeth Jane.”  Elizabeth looked at them and smiled.  I saw my mother-in-law melt.  She jumped out of her seat, grabbed Elizabeth from me and started kissing her, talking in that high-pitched baby voice that women tend to go into when they see a baby, and showing her to my father-in-law (who started crying, a side-effect of his Primary Lateral Sclerosis was that he had absolutely no control over emotion welling up inside him).  And with their reactions, every concern I’d had melted away. I silently thanked the Lord for His kind answer to my prayers. 

We’ve not talked to my in-laws about the ten-year rift in our relationship – so I still don’t know what we did to offend them so much they’d stop talking to their own son. Honestly, I’m not sure it matters any more.  They love my children above and beyond what I could’ve ever imagined and that is what matters.  The baby girl who mended the rift absolutely adores her Grammie and the feeling is mutual.  They share a love of jigsaw puzzles, making cookies and having short hair.

Nine years ago, I would have never imagined the day would come that I would call my mother-in-law, listen to her have a sobbing melt-down about my father-in-law's health, and desperately wish I could be there to help her.  (that’s a whole ‘nother blog post)  A close friend of mine once said, “Babies are the great equalizer.”  And, in our family at least, that has proven to be true.