In praise of mothers-in-law

The 19th-century French painter James Tissot was a contemporary of Edgar Degas and Édouard Manet.

But, instead of adopting their impressionism, he stuck to his realistic method. He painted fashionable women, as well as people and scenes from the Bible.

Already as a teenager, Tissot evinced the desire to become a painter, which his father, a drapery merchant, opposed, wanting him to join in the family business.

Nonetheless, his mother, a devout Catholic, single-mindedly supported her son’s decision.

Somehow, Tissot’s attachment to his mother, who instilled in him a devotion to her faith, might have influenced his work.

I sense this, for instance, in “The Healing of Peter’s Mother-in-Law,” a piece done in opaque watercolor and now displayed at the Brooklyn Museum.

Here, Tissot depicts the scene described in the Gospel of Mark.

“On leaving the synagogue (Jesus) entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever.

They immediately told him about her. He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up.

Then the fever left her and she waited on them.”

The Gospel account suggests that Peter’s mother-in-law was lying in bed because of a fever. When he learned of this, Jesus went to her, held her hand and helped her out of bed.

Tissot, however, adds a detail of his own — the woman actually attempted to welcome Jesus into her home but collapsed in the process, which tells us about the woman’s warmth, her hospitality, her high regard for Jesus.

Tissot’s depiction suggests the role of the mother-in-law in Peter’s household, which is confirmed by the fact that, having recovered from the fever, she immediately attended to Jesus and his companions.

This must have been a lot of work for her considering that she had not had enough lead time to prepare, and she had upwards of twelve hungry men to feed.

Peter’s mother-in-law reminds me of Grandmother. After she became a widow, she stayed with us. Without usurping Mother as woman of the house, she served our home with great devotion.

She used her skills as a farmer’s wife to make an empty pigsty yield the biggest eggplants I had seen, and planted every other empty space around, including the streetside, with vegetables, which she used in her soups and stews.

These were so delicious that I now find anything of a similar preparation as second-class.

We had an old Singer sewing machine on which she made dresses and pants for the family.

Father, who went for native cigars, got his supply from Grandmother, who kept a supply of tobacco leaves hanging on a line in her room.

In many ways, Mother took after Grandmother.

Aside from running a tight ship as lady of the household, she acted as carpenter pro hac vice.

In the absence of a handyman, she changed the arrangement of the rooms by herself, such that I would be disoriented upon arriving in the house from school.

And she herself dug wells, from which we drew the water for washing and bathing.

Above all, she was a horticulturist of the first degree and she turned our surroundings into a spectacular flower garden with magnolias, gladioli, dahlias, chrysanthemums, daisies and various other flowers, of which passers-by would invariably stop to ask for, and occasionally steal, a bouquet or seeds or cuttings.

The job of watering the flowers fell on us, the children.

I, being lazy, resented it in the beginning before I fell in love with old roses.

Peter’s mother-in-law suggests the role of women in Jesus’ life, especially Mary, his mother.

At the wedding feast in Cana, after Mary told him that the wine had run out, Jesus performed his first miracle and turned the water into wine.

In a sense, we can say that Peter’s mother-in-law helped in the miracles that Jesus carried out that evening.

The people of the town, having heard of his presence, gathered at the door, bringing with them those who were sick or possessed by demons.

Fortified by the dinner served by Peter’s mother-in-law, and dinners prepared by a grateful heart are never less than sumptuous, Jesus went about the task of healing and deliverance.