"A STORY A WEEK" NO. 21: A LETTER FROM HIS MOTHER-IN-LAW
My Dearest Darling Daughter:
I wanted to use what little time I'm sure is left to me to write, since you never seem to find the time anymore to write to me first, and wish you a Merry Christmas. Hopefully things are as well for you as can possibly be expected, considering the fact that you're still with That Thing You Married.
I'm fine, really, considering that I don't seem to be eating or sleeping or getting around much anymore these days. But I don't want you to worry. The important thing is that you have a nice holiday, so many hundreds of miles away from your poor, ailing mother whom you never write or call or think about anymore.
Enclosed please find the last ten dollars I have to my name, which I hope you will spend on my grandsons. Heaven knows That Thing You Married probably never buys them anything nice. The boys always seem so sad in what few pictures you’ve seen fit to send to me. Oh, I know they're smiling on the outside, but those big happy grins on their faces always seem so forced to me. They probably don’t even know that they have a grandmother so many hundreds of miles away, the poor babies.
It seems such a shame that such lovely children have such a worthless idiot for a father. Oh, how I wish you’s tell me that you’d had an affair with someone, and that HE was the father instead of That Thing You Married.
I've been meaning to thank you for the lovely flowers you sent me for my last birthday. I've put them in the freezer; that way they'll stay good and fresh until you need them to place upon my grave, which should be any minute now.I know you're probably shaking your head and chastising me because I keep saying that. Well, one of these days I’m going to be right, and then you'll be sorry that you didn't listen. I just hope that I'm here to see it.
Which reminds me: we buried Grandma last week. I know she died years ago, but I got to yearning for a good funeral so I had her dug back up and we held services all over again. They were beautiful, too, even though precious few people bothered showing up. Such disrespect! I would have invited you, but I know That Thing You Married would have never allowed you to make the trip. Everyone knows the real reason he moved you so far away was so that he could brainwash you and the children into forgetting that I even exist.
Come to think of it, I wouldn't be surprised if he somehow found out about the funeral and somehow tricked everyone up here into staying home. He'd do anything to hurt me, you know. Your aunts and uncles and cousins all tell my that I'm crazy, just as you always do, but who can trust the judgment of people who have been so easily duped by That Thing You Married?
Well, dear, it's time for me to crawl back to bed now. I lost my cane beating off a couple of muggers last week, but don't you worry about me. I'm getting used to the cold since the gas company turned off my heat. Besides, the frost on my bed helps numb the constant pain.
Now don't you even think about sending me any money. I know you need every penny you can scrape up for those family vacations that seem to take you everywhere but home every year. Yes, yes, I know you made an effort to visit for a few days last year, but all we did was argue. That's how I came to realize that you've been the victim of brainwashing and negative propaganda by That Thing You Married. You never would have been so quick to take his side otherwise. He certainly must be thin-skinned to have such a strong reaction to a little constructive criticism.
Perhaps one day you'll see fit to stop by just once on your way through town, just long enough to visit my grave. Maybe by then you'll understand that I'm the only person in all the universe who has ever had your best interests at heart, and you'll finally understand what a mistake it was for you to leave me. A mother can hope, anyway.
In the meantime, be sure to give my love to my darling grandbabies. And tell old What's-His-Name - that vile, evil devil of a creature who ripped you screaming from my bosom - that I've made arrangements to haunt him after I've gone. That will teach him!
Merry Christmas.
Love,
Mom
In : A Story A Week
Tags: fiction
John A. Small is an award-winning newspaper journalist, columnist and broadcaster whose work has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association, and the Oklahoma Education Association. He and his wife Melissa were married in 1986; they have two sons, Joshua Orrin (born 1991) and William Ian (born 1996).
Mr. Small is the News Editor and columnist for the Johnston County Capital-Democrat, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Tishomingo, OK. He obtained his nickname, "Bard of the Lesser Boulevards," from a journalism colleague - the late Phil Byrum - in recognition of the success of his popular newspaper column, "Small Talk." (In addition to the many awards the column itself has received over the years, a radio version of "Small Talk" earned an award for "Best Small Market Commentary" from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1998.)
John was born in Oklahoma City in 1963; lived in the Bradley-Bourbonnais-Kankakee area of Illinois for most of the next 28 years (with brief sojourns in Texas and Athens, Greece, thrown in to break up the monotony); then returned to his native state in 1991, where he currently resides in the Tishomingo/Ravia area. He graduated from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1981, and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais in 1991. The years between high school and college were a period frought with numerous exploits and misadventures, some of which have become the stuff of legend; nobody was hurt along the way, however, which should count for something.
In addition to his professional career as a journalist he has published two short story collections: "Days Gone By: Legends And Tales Of Sipokni West" (2007), a collection of western stories; and "Something In The Air" (2011), a more eclectic collection. He was also a contributor to the 2005 Locus Award-nominated science fiction anthology "Myths For The Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe," edited by Win Scott Eckert. In additon he has written a stage play and a self-published cookbook; served as project editor for a book about the JFK assassination entitled "The Men On The Sixth Floor"; and has either published or posted on the Internet a number of essays, stories and poems.
He has also won writing awards from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the National Library of Poetry. He is a past president of the Johnston County Chamber of Commerce in Tishomingo; was a charter member and past president of the Johnston County Reading Council, the local literacy advocacy and "friends of the library" organization; served as Johnston County's first-ever Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator in 1994-95; served two terms as chairman of the Johnston County (OK) Democratic Party; and has taught journalism classes for local Boy Scout Merit Badge Fairs. He is a member of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society.
