My Dear, It’s All Right

When my children were still young, my father-in-law was discharged from the hospital after a serious illness. He had grown so thin and frail that I was shocked by his appearance. Hoping to help him regain his strength, my sister-in-law managed to get hold of an expensive eel. Following my mother-in-law’s instructions, I put the eel into a large pot, set it on the stove, and simmered it for several hours. Having lived inland all my life, I had never eaten eel before. I had no idea how it was supposed to be prepared—or even how it was eaten.

After some time, my mother-in-law said it was ready to be taken out. I placed a colander in the sink and poured the contents of the pot into it. The moment I did, my mother-in-law, who normally had difficulty moving around, sprang to her feet in alarm and rushed over. With her bare hands, she desperately tried to scoop up the hot eel broth as it disappeared down the drain. Only then did it dawn on me that I had made a terrible mistake. But it was already too late. The damage was done. There was no use crying over spilled milk—or rather, spilled eel broth. The eel had been simmered for hours to produce a rich, milky broth that would help restore my father-in-law’s strength. But with so little experience in the kitchen, I had assumed we were supposed to eat only the eel and throw the broth away.

“What do we do? What do we do?”

I stood there in a panic, completely at a loss. I had made an enormous mistake and braced myself for a scolding, but my parents-in-law did not get angry or utter a single word of reproach. Instead, they comforted me and tried to put me at ease.

“My dear, it’s all right. Just don't say anything to your sister-in-law.”

And that was the end of it. To this day, it remains a secret known only to me and my late parents-in-law. Whenever I think back on that day, I feel nothing but remorse. I think of my sister-in-law, who had bought such an expensive eel despite the family's financial difficulties; my mother-in-law, who had spent hours tending the pot; and my father-in-law, whom I had caused needless worry when he should have been focused on regaining his strength. When I put myself in my mother-in-law’s shoes, I can only imagine how upset she must have been. Her inexperienced daughter-in-law had poured away the precious broth meant to help her ailing husband recover. She would have had every reason to scold me for days. Had my sister-in-law found out, she might have blamed me as well.

Even now, more than twenty years later, the thoughtfulness of my parents-in-law still warms my heart. Not wanting their young daughter-in-law, inexperienced in running a household, to be hurt, they quietly overlooked my mistake and reassured me that everything was all right. Their love has helped me become more gracious toward the mistakes of others. Rather than thinking first about how someone else’s mistake affects me, I find myself considering how that person must be feeling and what they might be going through. Having been in a similar situation myself, I can understand how such mistakes can happen.

Their love reminds me of our Heavenly Mother, who does not hold Her children’s faults against them. She has compassion on Her children as they struggle through a life made difficult by sin, and even when they stumble or make mistakes, She embraces them with boundless love, as though gently saying, “You are only human. These things happen.” Her love is the reason we can smile in Zion day after day. I, too, hope to share that love with many others through warm words that embrace their shortcomings.