When Vindication Brings You No Peace or Joy

It’s of course, appreciated, but you feel absolutely nothing

I’ve had this for almost a year. It was sent to me by a friend of my older daughter and her husband. This lovely young woman and her husband no longer live in our area. Her husband was also an engineer who worked with my son-in-law for many years.

I thought they were good friends until I received this in the form of a Facebook message. I had really liked this girl and her husband. So much so, I had invited them to have dinner with us one evening. She had given my daughter a very nice bridal shower. I believe she managed it by herself, and it was beautifully done.

She and her husband were always unusually nice to me, I thought. I mean, I could have been their mom, but I always had a feeling they both honestly liked me. I stayed loosely in touch with them through Facebook and Instagram.

I’ve always known I hadn’t done anything wrong. Perhaps I should have tried to pay more attention to my older daughter after their children were born. But my relationship with my son-in-law had so deteriorated I felt very awkward and unwelcome in their home.

When I was there babysitting and my daughter came in from work, sometimes I would try to give her a hug, or a little kiss. She never hugged me back or initiated any contact herself. Rather, she stood as though she was a statue, barely tolerating my occasional hugs until I released her.

My son-in-law so disliked me, I’m sure he went for a period of one to two years and never arrived home before I left. It felt horrible to know someone despised me to such an extent. It was overkill. I couldn’t understand this because he had been terribly rude and offensive to me, and my husband at times. Yet somehow he saw himself as the person who had been poorly treated in this relationship.

In hindsight, since I did suspect he hated me, it makes sense he would avoid me. I also now understand that he never thought he did anything wrong when he insulted me and my family. Or entered our home and before even greeting us, instructed us to turn off the TV. You know, because the Macy’s Christmas parade will surely damage small children if they’re exposed to it.

Or printed out a *test* for our vet to give a pathetic little 10-pound dog I adopted from the SPCA who had been rescued from a puppy mill bust. It was physically torturous. The vet was so appalled I was humiliated. He demanded to know where I had gotten the directive I had handed him. I explained our son-in-law had presented it to us, stating if we wanted our granddaughters to be able to visit in our home, our vet must follow through with each step of the test he had made up.

I was truly mortified. But what could I do? My son-in-law demanded the vet go through each action, I think there were 30, subjecting the dog to physical pain to gauge her reaction, then he had to sign it. We were to turn the signed findings over to our son-in-law.

My vet performed some of the actions but when he got to the one that said to pull her tail, he said, “ I’m not doing this anymore.” He whipped a pen out of his pocket, signed the papers, shook his head, and left me sitting in the exam room with this terribly damaged little creature I wanted to protect, not subject to more cruelty.

My son-in-law insisted we go through this same ordeal when our very old dog died a couple of years later, and I brought home another. Back to the vet I went, with a dog my granddaughters loved so much, the younger one asked if she could take her to her home to spend the night. She looked at me with pleading eyes, promising she would return her the following day. I have pictures of the girls with that dog, lying all over her, lovingly stroking her. I treasure them.

I saved the email too. The one he sent me when I had returned yet again, to NC State University, a grandmother, still searching for that education I so badly wanted. There was a physics class in my communications classroom right before that particular course started in the evenings.

One evening I arrived at school earlier than usual. The physics professor was getting ready to give his class a test, so had stayed late to answer questions some of the boys had. There were no girls in that particular class. I slipped in quietly and took a seat, planning to review my notes before my class got underway.

Although I had never known the physics professor to stay after his class was scheduled to be over, it was obvious what was going on. Of course, I didn’t care, it wasn’t time for my class to begin anyway. At one point, the professor stopped what he was doing, and addressed me thoughtfully. He actually said to me he hoped he and his students weren’t disturbing me. “Heavens no!” I distinctly remember answering him. I had always been afraid of even the word physics. I continued, telling the professor he was in no way bothering me. I remember saying to him, “ I haven’t understood but one word you’ve said since I’ve been in here.”

I intended to reassure this very nice man that he was speaking in a language that was utterly foreign to me, in no way disturbing me. However, this greatly piqued his interest, which surprised me. “ What was the word?” He sincerely wanted to know. I had heard the professor use the word, refraction. I remember when I heard it, thinking to myself, I know that word. I’m very nearsighted, and for years I’ve noticed that word has something to do with the prescription for my corrective lenses.

I explained to the professor although I didn’t know what significance the word refraction had to do with my lens prescription, I had seen it whenever I needed a prescription update since I was ten years old. The reason I remember this so clearly is because the professor stopped what he was doing with his students, and taught me the law of refraction. Amazingly, I understood him! It was a magical night indeed. He drew a fish tank on the erase board, and used that, along with various angles he drew, to demonstrate how the fish could appear to be in two different places at once because the light changes direction when it leaves the tank. I think? If I remember the lesson correctly.

Despite my lifelong fear of math and anything related to it, that night, a physics professor taught me a lesson. It was something I assumed I was incapable of learning, and he made it fun for me. I was more excited about that measly little physics lesson than I was about anything in the boring communications class that entire semester.

The next day it occurred to me my previous night’s adventure was something that might give my son-in-law a smile if I explained what the physics professor had taught me. I was always desperately flailing, trying to find something of interest I could talk with my son-in-law about. He was so brilliant it was frightening. At least he scared me with his cold, hard stares, rarely changing his facial expression, and wearing the EXACT same clothes every day. He changed them, but he only wore black tee-shirts and khaki pants. He had plenty of each, but unless, on rare occasions, he had to wear a suit, I don’t recall ever seeing him in anything else.

So I emailed him and explained what had transpired, leading to a great evening of learning for me. I believe I must have bored him, because he emailed me back, lecturing me on the importance of an education in engineering. He was aware my parents were highly educated individuals. Everyone, other than I, in my entire family, was. My mother had three degrees, my father had four, but they were in English, journalism, and theology. That subject matter didn’t count and was of no importance. My son-in-law informed me, “ Surely you must realize that no one not in possession of a degree in engineering, is a truly educated person.”

I almost couldn’t breathe. This was a dagger to the heart. Of all the mean things he had said and done, this was the worst. He insulted my parents, my siblings, my cousins, my husband, my younger daughter. We have doctors and lawyers, such as my younger daughter, who also has an MBA, but I have only one cousin, who, along with my older daughter hold degrees in engineering.

I cried. He has always been good at making me cry. I thought about all of this when I received the message from this lovely friend of my daughter and son-in-law. Her husband was a contemporary of my son-in-law, I gather they got along well at work, but this message caused me to think perhaps her husband wasn’t particularly fond of my son-in-law on a personal level. It seemed that maybe they had really liked my daughter, but him, not so much. And he was abusive to my daughter before they were even married? Why did she marry him? She’s a brilliant girl herself. What has this monster done to my kid?

I doubt I’ll ever really know. In a sense it doesn’t matter because the damage is so great it can never be repaired. When I received the message I sent it to my younger daughter right away. She was glad to receive it and told me she hoped I felt vindicated. I had thought about that because that is what this message was, it was vindication. Yet, I felt literally nothing. Not one thing, good or bad.

I don’t generally feel much. Occasionally something will make me very sad and I’ll cry, but not like I used to, and not often. I enjoy spending time with my infant granddaughter, she smiles at me now, which of course, makes me happy.

But this was surprising. Who knew that vindication would not only not leave you with a good feeling, but wouldn’t change the nothingness that you were feeling? I would never have thought I wouldn’t feel anything when essentially, this message was saying, you’ve done nothing wrong. This wasn’t your fault. Something is terribly wrong with your son-in-law. Who indeed?