Free Verse

His Jealous Mother

Nancy's Notes šŸ–ŠļøšŸŽ¶

Written for dVerse Poets ā€“ Quadrille Monday 209 ā€“ Plucking Strings
Our host Lisa asks us to include the word “string(s)” in our piece.
This is my free verse poem based on a true story as told by my mother.

My fatherā€™s mother hated my mother for marrying her son.

Returning from their honeymoon, my parents visited her mother, then his mother.

When his mother opened the door, she pushed my mother down the stairs, breaking the string of pearls around my motherā€™s neck.

NARĀ©2024
44 Words

dVerse — Quadrille Monday 209 — Plucking Strings

This is ā€œA String of Pearlsā€ by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra.

All text, graphics and videos are copyright for The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephantā€™s Trunk and The Rhythm Section and are not to be used without permission. NARĀ©2017-present.

57 thoughts on “His Jealous Mother”

    1. If my grandmother could speak and had any idea who Lady Catherine was, she’d probably get a real kick out of that comment!

      She did like my boyfriend (now husband), though, which shocked us. The first time she met him, she cackled, gave him one of those cheek pinches that leaves a mark for the rest of the day and called him “irlandese” (Irish)! We never forgot that totally out of character act.

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    1. Family is so important, Christine. We lucked out with our Daughters-In-Law. They’re both in the medical field and are strong, caring, compassionate women. One DIL hails from FL so we hardly ever get to see her parents; they are lovely people. Our other DIL was born and raised in the next town and we see her parents often. They are both former teachers, salt of the earth, loving Italian parents and we fell in love with them immediately. We’re very blessed in the in-law department. šŸ«¶šŸ¼

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  5. Yes, what Di said, ā€œWhat a Bitch!ā€ Wow Nancy, thatā€™s terrible. My first mother-in-law disliked me for taking her only son. She hated my mother and no one in my family cared for her. I had no idea how inlaws could be so cruel. I know now!! Second mother in law was even worse, if you can believe that. šŸ¤£ I do envy people who have more luck.

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    1. Oh, Christine! What a nightmare when MILs are so awful to get along with. I am so fortunate to have had a real and rare gem of a mother-in-law. She was one of the best women I ever knew and I Ioved her like my own mother. We lost her much too soon.

      My paternal grandmother must have had psychological issues but she was so nasty it was impossible to feel any sympathy for her. Children need their grandparent’s love; I got nothing like that from this grandmother. My maternal grandmother was a saint.

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          1. She lived to be 100 just as she said she would. No-one told us when she died, and her daughter died shortly after as their funerals were two weeks apart. SIL wasn’t very nice either, and they deserved each other.

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    1. Take my word for it, Bjƶrn. She was miserable her whole life. My grandmother died two years after I was married, in 1974, and we all paid our respects as a family should. She was my father’s mother and I’m sure he loved her but he loved my mother more. I think my mother heaved a sigh of relief when she was no longer around to taunt people. She must have had a pretty miserable life of her own to turn out so nasty. She never said more than 10 words to me my whole life; I’m not even sure she knew my name.

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  9. Nancy, it is hard to “like” this one. What a fiend! She should have been arrested. It would make her think twice about doing that kinda sh*t again. It’s a blessing your mom survived!

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    1. People like her have no remorse. She hated my mother for marrying her son and because my mother was cultured while she was a slovenly miserable woman. She had one daughter-in-law who would agree with everything she said or did. Her DIL was probably the only person she liked, besides her sons. I will never figure out people like her. Yet my mother took us to visit her every Sunday without fail.

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        1. Lisa, ever since she was a small child, my mother believed in each person doing their duty. It was her duty to pay respect to her husband’s mother even though the woman clearly hated her. Somewhere along the way my mother lost the separation between doing things out of love and doing them because they were her duty. Eventually everything became a duty to her even though she didn’t see it that way. It was a very complex situation. My father wanted to see his mother and brothers, and my mother would never keep him from them. My sister and I used to say our mother’s gravestone should read “She did her duty.”

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          1. Thanks for explaining. It helps me see. I don’t know why your dad couldn’t have gone alone, or taken you kids by himself. You kids were treated poorly and it didn’t need to be. Did your dad ever speak up in defense of your mom??

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            1. It’s a very basic answer: my father never learned to drive! He and my mother took us kids on pubic transportation every Sunday from The Bronx to Jersey City to see his mother. The trip was at least 2 hours each way, something my father could not handle alone. Later on my mother learned to drive and bought a car; she continued the Sunday tradition, this time driving us. I don’t know if my father ever spoke up in my mother’s defense. I was a child through much of it.

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    1. You’d never know how miserable my mother was over this, Kymber. My mother was raised to show respect to her elders and this woman was her husband’s mother. I’m sure my mother would not give her the satisfaction of playing her game and she put up with her for almost 50 years. I’m very sorry I never got to know my grandmother; she made that impossible.

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        1. Kymber… I just fished your comment out of spam and I feel awful that I didn’t find you sooner; I don’t look here very often. I apologize for that. You’re right; that was a terrible thing for my mother to endure and it didn’t get much better over the years. She showed an incredible amount of grace; I don’t think I could have been as gracious. Thanks for your comments, Kymber.

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    1. Absolutely! My mother could have sustained a broken neck or broken back. Fortunately she did not fall all the way down the stairs and was not badly injured, just some bruising and strains and terribly shaken up. Her wedding band got caught in the railing so that broke as well as her string of pearls.

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        1. Me? No! She barely acknowledged me or my sister. I’m not even sure she ever accepted my name. She demanded my mother name me Vincenzina. Nancy? That’s not an Italian name! Whenever we visited, we kissed her hello and kept our distance, opting to play with our cousins instead.

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      1. Oh wow on the last sentence, Nancy. What was the rationale behind that? Especially after the attempted murder. What kinds of lessons did you learn from that experience?

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    1. My mother would tear up every time she told us that story. I didnā€™t hear about it until I was an adult and all I could think of what a first class act my mother was, taking us to visit my grandmother every Sunday. At the time we didnā€™t have a car and had to take public transportation; it took us at least 2 hours each way and we always had a miserable time!

      Thank you, Panda!

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