My Zang-Mo-Nim, Korean for mother-in-law, left yesterday afternoon. She’d spent the weekend here, partially for a visit and partially to watch the dog while we went to Seoul for the marriage. It was like having a built in personal servant cum slave. She cooked, she cleaned, she organized, she ran errands. Definitely an old-style Korean woman. Few American women would  do the amount of work she’d done  without complaining one iota. I could barely stir my morning coffee with sugar and  milk and she’d have the spoon washed and put up.  That’s no exaggeration. She cleaned  and organized our refrigerator and it took me a while after she left to find all my western food like cheese and bacon and sliced turkey. She likely had no idea what they even were since none of them had any Korean writing on them. Today, as I got dressed I noticed my underwear drawer and sock drawer had been all organized and everything neatly folded.

I asked MyeongHee if her mother was bored and she said no, that’s just her style. She lives to care for others. She left for the oldest son’s home on Sunday and he’ll get the same treatment. That’s just her way of going through life- caring for her children, no matter their age or stage in life.

Now, if we had enough room to have her stay here without crowding out MyeongHee’s son and afford us our newlywed privacy, life would be even grander.