My Mother-in-Law.......

I guess I'm one of the luckier married women in the world. Not only do I have the world's last perfect man, but also the world's only perfect mother-in-law. I told Hubby early in our marriage that if anything ever happened to us, I was getting custody of his mother. He didn't argue.

She's a sweet lady, and she would do anything in the world for us. When we missed the Party Bus to a UGA football game one Saturday morning (when that guy says the bus leaves at 8:07, he means 8:07, not 8:10), she took us to Athens to the tailgate location.

She keeps Gus for us every time we go out of town so he won't be subjected to the horrors of boarding. (My apologies to Chico.)

She cooks a mean biscuit, and her chicken and dumplings are scrumptious. She still insists on cooking a big meal for the whole family on Christmas Day.

She lets me use her car on the rare occasion that something is wrong with mine. Maybe I shouldn't give her too much credit for that one. Her car used to be mine, and I GAVE it to her when I bought my SUV.

She is 79 years old, and she's fairly frail. She has broken every bone you can think of: both hips, a wrist, a finger, a shoulder. And that's just in the 12 years I've known her. She broke her shoulder when she reached back to turn on a lamp. That's how fragile she is. She now walks with a walker, but she still drives and she's very sweet-natured. You can't make her mad, at least not that I know of. And if Hubby doesn't make her mad with some of HIS teasing, she must be a saint.

She has bounced back from double pneumonia, and just this past summer she had to have a stent put into her heart. But she gets right back on her feet almost immediately, and she always appears to have few lasting effects.

She's in the hospital tonight, but we don't know if they will keep her. My sister-in-law is with her and is keeping us posted on developments and her status. SIL was asking for clues to a crossword puzzle when she called earlier, so it must not be too serious.

But when someone is that old, you always get that "What if....." feeling any time she gets sick. People don't live forever, and I always wonder if this one will be the time that she goes downhill fast. Is that morbid? I don't mean to be. She just recuperates so easily and gets back to normal so fast that in between her illnesses and injuries, we forget how old and fragile she is and take for granted that she'll live forever.

I'll send up an extra prayer for her tonight.