For those who don't know me, I have a extremely disabled wife who I can bring home for a few hours on the weekends.

I love her.

I am also now FT female, my wife knew about my 'situation' when we dated. We have been married for 30 years.

The whole family knows about my life with the exception of my mother in law (MiL). She is 90.

She and her family are Americans, from Pennsylvania. A very tiny 'hick' place called Boykins. They are typical USA religious people. I have no religion.

Well we were protecting my MiL from knowing about me, she is very proud of my academic career and I'm a bit of a hero to her. She is extremely happy in how I have cared for her daughter in very difficult times.

But when I went FT and obvious body changes were becoming too obvious I spoke to her and told her of my situation. She was very understanding and very lovely.

Today I had a BBQ for her, sister in law and my wife.

I brought them home and we had coffee and a chat, MiL was straight into it!

'Cindy, I love your hair style it really suits you. I really like the colouring and I like how you have done your make up. It makes you look good and not like someone painted your face.'

'Your skin looks a lot softer and I can see you have some development'

Lets eat.

We ate and we chatted and the comments came flying in and out.

'Cindy as long as you are happy and look after your wife everything is fine by me.'

'It is your life and God wants to let you live it'

Lots of stories from the past (as usual, she is 90). The wanders back to the present , even in the same sentence.

'Cindy, I'm really proud of you. It must have taken a lot of courage to do what you are doing, many people would just give up. I remember "drift into a 40 year past happening" '
'Well I for one am going to tell everyone that I'm very proud of my new daughter in law, who used to be my son in law.'

She is 90. She can accept, and she never missed a pronoun.

There is not only hope in the world, but there are also some people blessed by their Gods with the gifts of understanding and love.

Thank you Peggy for a great day.

I love you.

Your new daughter in law.

Cindy

That's great Sis.     Glad it went well

It is nice to see that religion is not the sole province of the bigots and the control-freaks. I am glad it went well for you. My mother-in-law is also quite elderly and she also took it surprisingly well and very positively.

The wisdom of older women....

That is so sweet darl.  She sounds like a real angel, the sort of person who can make a small town a wonderful pace to live, instead of hell.

Brilliant .

Yeah, we need a whole lot more people like your mother-in-law who can see religion as an affirming supportive force rather than a harsh limiting inflexible force.

Thank you for sharing your wonderful experience, Cindy. I'll admit I teared up a little. I'm happy for you!

That is awesome.  BTW how is the wife doing?  I know it is tough for you and for her.

All my love to both of you.
Janet

Quote from: Ms. OBrien on September 23, 2012, 11:01:50 PM
That is awesome.  BTW how is the wife doing?  I know it is tough for you and for her.

All my love to both of you.
Janet

She has lost the use of both arms now and has to be fed, but I got cataract operations for her so she can watch TV and I've got her a DVD so staff can put a movie on for her .

She is still very positive but has told me that she has realised that she will never live at home again. That broke my heart again even though I knew it was true, but I could never tell her that. She has choking fits because her chest muscles are going and her swallow reflex is poor. They distress her and she tries to hide them from staff so they won't give her a soft diet. The staff all know and are very very kind to her.

Her strength and fortitude of character are a lesson to me and if I ever fall into any sort of self pity or the 'Goddess I can't do this' feeling I just have to seek her and that puts stop to any self pity.

Remembering that in seconds she went from a very fit healthy woman to paralysed by tripping on a piece of carpet and banging her head.

I know that she would be more than happy for all of the people here to use her strength of character. There are worse things than being transgendered. To go from healthy to paralysed yet with a very healthy body is probably worse.

She does send her love to you all. she knows about you all and we talk about you. She always wishes you peace and happiness.

Love

Cindy and Rebecca

Love to both of you sis.

Please let Rebecca know that she is in my thoughts daily

Love to you both

Hugs

- Virginia

That is so great to hear about your Mother-in-law's accepting and warm attitude toward you.

Also to hear the strength of your Wife is inspiring.
I, for one, hope that continues to have joy in her strength.

hugs cindy to you and yours
jessi

wow that's really awesome
am so very happy for you and am glad that you can proudly say you have a really awesome MIL:-)

Hi Cindy, its so nice to hear that your mil is so accepting. Your spouse is a very strong womanand it is wonderful that she us able to keep her spirits up. So sorry to hear about her swallowing difficulies. As she is nentally competent she can let the nusing staff know that she is aware of the risks of a regular diet and accepts tem. She has had enough taken away from her, she ahould at least me able to eat what ahe enjoys. Additionally, remind staff to give really snall pieces. Sometimes it is easy to get behind in nursing tasks and we forget to make the bite as tiny as they should be.

It was do good to read this post today. Reading about the love you have for each other made my day.

What a cool woman!! Wow, makes me happy reading that!

--Jay J

I think you have a wonderful family, really great and inspiring, just as you are.

All our love for both of you from my wife and I.

Kathy