We were numb. We buried our daughter that day and were exhausted and torn. My wife's older sister, in her fifties, and her fiance Mike were still at our house along with my wife and Sue's mother. My MIL had to have a ride home so we asked Sue if she and Mike would mind. Not a great request and we needed a break.
"Oh Mike and I have plans" she announced. "We're going shopping and out to eat" . So after that long, evil day we were forced to make the 40 mile trip to carry my wife's mother home so my sil could go shopping. From a personal standpoint I would have not placed this additional burden on a total stranger. So after the stress and grief the day of burying our 15 year old daughter, killed by a drinking driver, we had to go and do one more thing that another had refused us. We were astounded and heartbroken. Not for having to do it but for the total cold hearted lack of compassion.
Upon getting her mother home she asked my wife to make out her monthly bills, so with a heavy heart she sat down and did bookkeeping for an hour. These things were typical of my wife's family. My mother in law tried to persuade my wife not to marry me so that she could have a personal chauffeur and errand runner. Nothing like wanting the best for your children eh? I finally figured out that all the kindness, warmth, care and loving kindness had been bestowed upon my wife and thus the complete absence of the milk of human kindness in the rest of them.
I've always regretted their coldness. I definitely got the jewel piece out of the pile of tailings! Being highly impatient my sil Sue despised having to wait on her mother at all. When she took her mother out to eat (her mom always paid for everything) she wouldn't wait for the elderly woman to finish her meal but would leave the table and go wait in the car while her mother finished eating alone! In stores she just walked off leaving her elderly mother to fend for herself.
Remember the old Abbot and Costello movies and how greedy and asinine Bud was? (don't be greedy! Think of something I can buy for myself!) I refer to this greedyness as the "Bud Abbot syndrome", or BAS.
Thankfully remembering is not the same as unforgiveness. I feel compassion for members of my wife's family the majority of whom are unsaved. Many are staunch Roman Catholics who have even made pilgrimages to Rome to pay homage to Mary and again bow down before the statues! My sil refers to her four grown children as fine Christians. In reality they are plagued by failed marriages, drug abuse, not being able to keep jobs and as far as I am aware, none of them know the Lord. We pray for their deliverance and salvation regularly.
Someone wisely observed that "forgiveness is made more difficult when the offenders are still enjoying what they did to you". Being the best of their offspring my wife was put in the position of caring for her health afflicted mother while her grown siblings were doing something else. We suffered as a family because no help was forthcoming in caring for the mother despite having two grown sons with wives and Sue their eldest daughter. They were always too busy despite the fact that we had three small children. Amazingly I never let loose a firey revelation upon them for their look the other way attitudes.
Our children never knew their mother's parents because we were on their list of do not acknowledge, call or visit list. One day after being at their other daughter's house, (Sue with the BAS) they condescended to stop by. When I was alone with Henry, my wife's father, I said man to man "Mr. Saugey (so-gee) I feel sorry for you. You have beautiful grandchildren here who don't even know own you because you never see them". He lowered his head like a scolded child. I would like to say it changed things but it didn't. I could have used more friends and would have been overjoyed at friendship with my in laws, but because I was a Christian and didn't drink, swear and act coarsely they saw me as a wimp.
I really hope I've forgiven their stuff but mainly just feel extreme pity at their total ignorance of God and His ways. I never congratulate myself about having compassion or being able to forgive. I just pray that I can forgive all hurts and trespasses and they everyone can forgive mine. This is the first time I've ever shared these things and hope it helps me and maybe you in confessing my faults.
To me there is nothing so amazingly horrifying as one human that is absolutely indifferent to the sufferings and afflictions of another and is completely amoral in their thoughts and emotions. Eat your heart out Bud Abbot, you've been bested.
"Oh Mike and I have plans" she announced. "We're going shopping and out to eat" . So after that long, evil day we were forced to make the 40 mile trip to carry my wife's mother home so my sil could go shopping. From a personal standpoint I would have not placed this additional burden on a total stranger. So after the stress and grief the day of burying our 15 year old daughter, killed by a drinking driver, we had to go and do one more thing that another had refused us. We were astounded and heartbroken. Not for having to do it but for the total cold hearted lack of compassion.
Upon getting her mother home she asked my wife to make out her monthly bills, so with a heavy heart she sat down and did bookkeeping for an hour. These things were typical of my wife's family. My mother in law tried to persuade my wife not to marry me so that she could have a personal chauffeur and errand runner. Nothing like wanting the best for your children eh? I finally figured out that all the kindness, warmth, care and loving kindness had been bestowed upon my wife and thus the complete absence of the milk of human kindness in the rest of them.
I've always regretted their coldness. I definitely got the jewel piece out of the pile of tailings! Being highly impatient my sil Sue despised having to wait on her mother at all. When she took her mother out to eat (her mom always paid for everything) she wouldn't wait for the elderly woman to finish her meal but would leave the table and go wait in the car while her mother finished eating alone! In stores she just walked off leaving her elderly mother to fend for herself.
Remember the old Abbot and Costello movies and how greedy and asinine Bud was? (don't be greedy! Think of something I can buy for myself!) I refer to this greedyness as the "Bud Abbot syndrome", or BAS.
Thankfully remembering is not the same as unforgiveness. I feel compassion for members of my wife's family the majority of whom are unsaved. Many are staunch Roman Catholics who have even made pilgrimages to Rome to pay homage to Mary and again bow down before the statues! My sil refers to her four grown children as fine Christians. In reality they are plagued by failed marriages, drug abuse, not being able to keep jobs and as far as I am aware, none of them know the Lord. We pray for their deliverance and salvation regularly.
Someone wisely observed that "forgiveness is made more difficult when the offenders are still enjoying what they did to you". Being the best of their offspring my wife was put in the position of caring for her health afflicted mother while her grown siblings were doing something else. We suffered as a family because no help was forthcoming in caring for the mother despite having two grown sons with wives and Sue their eldest daughter. They were always too busy despite the fact that we had three small children. Amazingly I never let loose a firey revelation upon them for their look the other way attitudes.
Our children never knew their mother's parents because we were on their list of do not acknowledge, call or visit list. One day after being at their other daughter's house, (Sue with the BAS) they condescended to stop by. When I was alone with Henry, my wife's father, I said man to man "Mr. Saugey (so-gee) I feel sorry for you. You have beautiful grandchildren here who don't even know own you because you never see them". He lowered his head like a scolded child. I would like to say it changed things but it didn't. I could have used more friends and would have been overjoyed at friendship with my in laws, but because I was a Christian and didn't drink, swear and act coarsely they saw me as a wimp.
I really hope I've forgiven their stuff but mainly just feel extreme pity at their total ignorance of God and His ways. I never congratulate myself about having compassion or being able to forgive. I just pray that I can forgive all hurts and trespasses and they everyone can forgive mine. This is the first time I've ever shared these things and hope it helps me and maybe you in confessing my faults.
To me there is nothing so amazingly horrifying as one human that is absolutely indifferent to the sufferings and afflictions of another and is completely amoral in their thoughts and emotions. Eat your heart out Bud Abbot, you've been bested.
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