When the day comes that you have to meet your partner’s parents, it doesn’t matter whether you want to avoid the situation, downright fear the situation itself, or are trying to find every possible way to delay it; it has to happen at some point. I have been with my partner for over three years and we also happen to be high school sweethearts, so the “meet the parents” encounter came rather quickly. Honestly, I was not looking forward to it. Most of all, however, I was not looking forward to meeting my partner Logan’s mom. Southern mammas of boys tend to be overprotective and at that time I was a high schooler, so, even though Mrs. A was not my mom, she was another entity of possibly budging into our relationship. However, to the surprise of my pessimistic self, she ended up being one of the kindest women I have ever met. I never would have imagined that three years later I would be so thankful for all that she has done for me.
As you can imagine, being that I was seventeen-year old Margo, I was not trying to get to know Logan’s mom. I just figured I would see where the relationship would go. Honestly, she, like myself at the time, probably had no clue that three years later I would still be eating food out of her fridge all the time. Anyways, for the first year of knowing Mrs. Anderson our relationship consisted of mostly hi’s and bye’s — nothing too deep. However, come the summer that I was about to enter college, we started to become closer since I no longer had school. At the time, I was terrified to go to college in Ohio. Every other adult had told me, “You’ve worked your whole life to go to a school like Kenyon, you have to go,” following my explanation that no, I was not excited. However, when Mrs. Anderson asked and I replied back about dreading the inevitable, she was concerned and upset that I was so upset.
I thought, “Wow, finally an adult that is actually listening to me.” It felt nice to finally feel like someone was on my side. When the time came for me to go to school, she was nothing but encouraging and continued to check on me once I got on campus. My transition to school was rough; I had never felt so alone, scared, and stressed all at once. When Mrs. A had found out from Logan that I was not doing well, she helped book him a ticket and allowed him to travel to Ohio by himself while he was still in high school. Had she not done that for me, I cannot say that I would still have attended Kenyon.
Come my sophomore year, my life upon my arrival back to school was also rocky. My parents were getting divorced along with which came a series of other events related to the divorce. Unfortunately, I also had to find out about everything nine hours away via phone. I was a wreck and I could not go to my mom or grandparents at the time because they both were involved. Not knowing where to turn, I called Logan’s mom in a panic with tears rolling down my face and am convinced that most of my sentences were probably not coherent. His poor mom, who I am sure was not expecting a phone call of this kind, stayed on the phone and calmed me down. For the days following she continued to check on me and make sure I was okay. Throughout the entire process of my life continually changing she has been a support system to me and I cannot thank her enough for all she has done for me.
Mrs. A has gone above and beyond what any partner’s parent is required to do, from sending care packages to dealing with my high school moody shenanigans, which were plenty in number. It has not always been sunshine and daisies between us. However, through it all she has always supported me. I never would have imagined how great it would be to have a good relationship with your partner’s parents. She, like Logan, I now consider part of my “close” family. Not many people can say that they would not mind one day having their partner’s mom as an in-law, but I would not mind one bit. She may be a strict southern momma, but she has a heart of gold.