To the brave reader of this dribble:

This is just a letter to my Mother-In-Law. She pretty much disowned her son because of me. I really don’t know how to begin this letter, but it is something that needs to be done and is long overdue. My friends, family, and even random strangers have begged me to document the brief, amazing life of my husband, so please bear with me, dear readers! My husband, (her son) Smitty, only lasted 53 years before cancer took him, but he really packed in some living! There are yachts, thoroughbreds, lobster diving boats, ultimate skiing, golf, lots and lots of amazing sex (hey, it’s ok, we were married!), in fact there will be some sex chapters that are confessions from my past, because they say “Sex sells,” and I need to sell this book for my daughter’s college fund. So I’ll be sure to give forewarning so when you’re listening to the audiobook with your children in the car you can quickly change to “Kids’ Place Live” on Satellite Radio or something on the regular airwaves… It may even be worth plugging them into technology with headphones. Still, it’s something to look forward to.

The real plan is to somehow get through to my Mother-In-Law after having married her son without her and his adopted father’s blessings. We had the most amazing life together, and I cannot believe she allows herself to be controlled by a powerful and cruel man who would keep her away from her very own full-blooded Grandbaby? And Campbell is 100% Texas Bred and Reared (except for the fact that we happened to live in other parts of the U.S., and our son arrived on the planet in a little town called Murrieta, California, but other than that, he’s pure Texan because of his parents… But I am getting ahead of myself.)

 

A PROLOGUE FOR Mrs. Smith:

Mrs. Smith, Judith Greeson Smith, or Judy if I may, I’d like to start with the only thing I have: what I know or have been told about you to develop your character. I have to do it for this letter, so that anyone else reading the letter will see where I’m coming from and possibly understand where you are coming from. Let it be known that I’ve only met you twice.

But first and foremost, before I vent, before I reveal any truths, before the sex and violence and the great dirt, I would like to thank you for giving birth to the most amazing man. He was the best of the best at so many things, and he knew how to love me so deeply and so truly. I must attribute at least some of his successes and his personality and his ambition to you, and I am so grateful that I had the chance to love and care for your son. I took great care of him, I promise, but I let him do everything he wanted — like motorcycles, ice climbing, etc.. I believed in him, and I know that ½ of him comes from you. I don’t know you, so I don’t know how to recognize your traits in him. But I’m still thankful. But one can have an air of gratitude and an air of disdain simultaneously, and I’ll show you why…

Judith, I would really like to know your side of the story and know where you’re coming from. I just don’t understand the current situation. Your world and my world aren’t that far apart, and at this moment in time they don’t seem to intersect. But now, sometimes, I think it must be a foreign universe, because in my galaxy, being a Grandmother is the most loving, rewarding, fun-filled, educational thing you can be, and you refuse to be Granny Smith to your brilliant and talented grandson, Campbell Murphy Smith, a.k.a. OuiBeastie. So Judith, we start with you, what I know about you from interviews with your sister, your nephews, your aunt Elizabeth, etc. And what I’ve learned from meeting you. And what I’ve heard from your son. People are dying to meet The Mother-In-Law…