Every time I do laundry, I am grateful for my father-in-law, Richard Brinker, and my step-mother-in-law, Teresa Brinker, who insisted on buying us a washing machine after our first daughter was born. We were hard-headed adult kids who thought a washboard and some elbow grease would suffice. It probably would have, for a few weeks, until we bought our own. Nowadays, the washing machine is used at least four times a week, saving us hundreds of back-breaking hours and thousands of dollars we could have spent driving to the public laundromat. While we do not have a dryer, we are happy to hang dry our clothes, until you get a pair of underwear so stretched out that even a sumo wrestler would disappear in them. Rich and Teresa celebrated Primrose’s first birthday at our property, where we partied inside the yurt after raising the structure together.

Every time I watch my wife engage with our children, I am thankful for her mother, who was, and is, a shining example of a gentle, patient, and loving parent. Cynthia Brinker is a living example of a parent who continues to parent through her children’s adult years. She is available, thoughtful, and present. She has taken leave from work twice now to travel thousands of miles to visit us in the winter without a plan or a hope to do anything but visit. Speaking of which, she currently has her bag packed waiting for the call to fly up and help for a couple of weeks after the twins are born.

Every time I put the kids to bed, Primrose insists on wearing a Spider-man t-shirt that her Aunt Sarah sent. A Spider-man painting hangs above the bed that was created by her cousin, Lil’ Felipe, Sarah’s son. A stack of moon blocks is scattered around the house and always ends up on the floor. I thank Aunt Shannon for her love of the moon cycles, and for the kind gift. Both Marlena and Primrose fell in love with the movie Annie last time we were in Missouri thanks to their Aunt Cheryl. Their love of the Kansas City Royals is also thanks to Aunt Cheryl, who has made the trip to Alaska to visit us even though she doesn’t like the cold. Whenever Primrose brings up the idea of returning to Missouri, she talks about the last night we were there when a lightning and thunderstorm rolled in and some of her cousins cried and her cousin Layne got his tooth knocked out by a frisbee and he cried and bled all over. She remembers it like it was last week, yet it was almost 9 months ago. She has so many fond memories of her cousins, Layne, Dallas, and Salem because their mother, her Aunt Charlotte, brought the kids over almost every day while we were there.

People talk a lot of trash about their in-laws. I, too, am guilty of this. It’s easier to pick out other people’s faults rather than focus on our own. To focus on what they are not doing and how they “should” be, rather than what they are doing and who they are. To isolate and play the victim, convincing ourselves that “nobody gives a damn” because they don’t call, rather than to pick up the damn phone and call them. Well, I don’t really know if it’s easier— but it’s what many of us do. I hope and plan to be a better in-law to them, because I sure do love them- even if I don’t know how to show it. I am blessed to have married into a wonderful family who love and take care of us even though we live thousands of miles away.