This is Sharon, my mother-in-law. She taught me it’s important work to see someone for who they are and not what you expect.

When I first met my mother-in-law I had a hard time understanding her thick south Virginia accent. And she seemed a little bossy in that southern passive aggressive polite way.

But I knew she was important to the love of my life, so I accepted her grudgingly as some of us do when family is forced on us.

After 5 years I still didn’t really know her.

When my wife got leukemia at 30. When our world was shattered and changed forever, Sharon very quietly and very firmly stepped into the role she was born for. She moved, with her dependent Vietnam vet husband, into our house and became Michele’s caretaker too.

Over the last two years she bought most of the groceries, cooked almost every meal, did most of the laundry and cleaning, drove both dependents to almost every one of the 300+ doctor appointments, sorted tens of thousands of pills. And made sure they were all taken on time at every hour every day.

And she did this when she herself was diagnosed with cancer 6 months ago. When she was getting a mastectomy. When she is going through chemo.

She hums when she works. She talks to herself when there’s no one to listen, and she goes about every day with humility and grace.

I took this photo before I left work this morning. She didn’t know I was there.

This, friends, is what greatness looks like in a quiet moment.

Waiting on oatmeal to cook for her daughter for the 300th time since she got sick.

Not everyone gets to have a real-world superhero in their lives. And for this I am filled with gratitude every day.

Credit: Scott Mann