My MIL was a trial, too, Pam. For the last five years of her life, she lived with us. One day, I looked at the death ages of her parents, grandparents, and great grandparents and came up with an average to get some idea of when I might be free of her insanity (never diagnosed, but her mother had a lobotomy and was still horrible). As it turned out, my average was spot on.

In the following years, I’ve come to appreciate her good qualities. I knew she’d been a battered child and had mental health issues, so I was able to be sympathetic, but she was a trial, no mistake. She died the day they pulled down Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad. Ironic, huh?