The first time I met my mother-in-law I passed out in a snowbank, not once, but three times. It was January in 1981. Cliff brought me home from Williston to Fargo to meet his parents. We traveled on a train in the dead of winter. I think the temperature was 20 below zero, perhaps colder. After a long day I fell asleep while watching TV and I remember waking up feeling hot and disoriented. I decided the thing to do was to go outside, which I did. The next thing I knew, Cliff was lifting me up off the ground. I had snow on my face and in my hair. He had run outside when he saw me go out the door and he was standing barefoot in the snow, hopping on one foot and then the other.
"What happened?" I wanted to know. He wasn't sure. Truthfully, he hadn't known me very long at that point. But he asked me if I was alright and I said yes, so he let go and back down into the snowbank I went. Again, he picked me up, again asked me if I was alright and again I said yes, so he dashed back inside to grab his boots. When he returned moments later I was once again face down in the snowbank.
I would guess that the problem was nervousness combined with extreme temperature changes, from being too warm to suddenly being too cold. Whatever caused me to faint, I think I made his mother wary. She wasn't sure if I was on drugs, or was a closet alcoholic or what. She was always kind, but for months I sensed a bit of nervousness where I was concerned.
I wanted her to like me, so I set out on a mission to woo her, beginning with her main joy and hobby. I asked her to teach me to knit. That's really all it took. We sat side by side for hours on end, working on simple projects at first, before graduating to the more complicated. From there we graduated to scrapbooking and finally to quilting. I had found the doorway into her heart, and what a big heart she has.
Tonight that heart is struggling. Harriet is in the hospital fighting off congestive heart failure and possibly pneumonia. Please pray for her.
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