Colors, continues
I forgot to mention dealing with our families.
By the time Mack & I met, my mother had been gone for 10 years. She would have loved Mack. They would have had fun sharing cooking tips and traditions.
Mack's family accepted me right away. There were a couple sisters-in-laws and aunts who had reservations, but they never voiced them to me. Everyone was respectful. My mother-in-law, Mae Helen, and I hit it off right away. We always talked a lot & shared things. She told me once that she always thought of me as one of her children. I was proud of that because we were such close friends.
Even going to the Hardin reunion was a positive vibe. If anyone objected to me, they smiled and moved on. I felt Mack's family knew not to cross Mack.
Now my family was quite different. It was a year after Mack & I got together that I even decided to share my information. I wanted to be sure the relationship would last. I made a decision on my own to tell my family and some friends that Mack & I were married. We were not, but I felt like my father or my ex-husband's 2nd wife might try to keep me from the kids because we were a mixed couple and because we were not married. We were together 15 yrs. before we decided we needed to be married. I certainly didn't want my kids to have to lie like that for me for a year. So I told the lie & stuck to it.
When my father got the news about his daughter's choice of a man, I was visiting them in IA with cousin, Sandy. Annamae (step-mother) then began life as a go-between. When I went to IA, I did not stay in Mt. Vernon. I stayed at Gramma's house. That was great because Gramma Remington and I were very close. This way of visiting my family went on for 15 yrs....until my Dad died. After that Mack went out to IA for visits, but was not really up for staying in Dad's house. Mack became a part of my family then.