Shelley Franklin

Quick story in which my mom teaches me about loving people. When my big sister got married, they pulled away from the family a lot. In hindsight, she was the oldest daughter who did too much for all of us, and her husband helped her put down boundaries with us, and it was new and painful. The first few years of their marriage they didn’t come to a lot of family functions. But they were sometimes there and my BIL was super polite, but also a big introvert. About 4 years into it, on Christmas Eve, when all of us were just grazing food in my mom’s kitchen, and talking about life as we often did on holidays, I looked over and saw BIL was sitting in a recliner in the other room, reading a book. Annoyed, I went over to my mom, to tattle. (I was also a married adult at this time.) “Mom, do you see he’s just in the other room, reading? It’s Christmas Eve for goodness sake.” My mom gasped and quietly peeked into the other room. “It worked!” She said. “What worked?” I asked. “He’s just so shy around us, and I’ve been brainstorming ways to help him relax when he’s at our house. So I found out who his favorite author was, and bought the newest book just published. I set it right by the recliner, hoping he’d feel comfortable enough to just pick it up and read it. I got him to relax over here! It worked!” I was humbled. Astounded. Her goal wasn’t to get him to get with the program. Her goal wasn’t to assimilate him to what the rest of our family was doing. Her goal was to help him feel loved when he was with us. I will never ever forget this lesson she taught me.