It took me a full 15 minutes to fall for my husband. But with my mother-in-law, it was love at first sight.

A white cloud of perfectly coiffed hair. Eyes as deep blue as the ocean she loved. And a smile that, as it full-bloomed, took her from pretty to beautiful.

I basked in the sunshine of that smile for a couple of reasons. First, I married her adored youngest son. Then, I produced a grandson who was the epitome of perfection to her. That might have been enough for us — two different planets revolving around the same suns. But there was something else. Flying in the face of conventional wisdom, or wretched mother-in-law lore, we immediately clicked.

Marcia Marshall Long grew up like a princess in a tragic fairy tale. Her kingdom was Marshallia, a 82,000-acre, ocean-front horse-and-cattle ranch in Southern California (next door to Will Rogers’ vast spread). But it was her aptitude for high jinks that featured prominently in the stories she shared with me. Putting ink, for instance, in the holy water fonts at a succession of boarding schools. Or skipping school to go surfing and returning barefoot.

Her rich experiences added to the lore of her life. Her father raised race horses and had a private box at the Santa Anita Race Track. And a schooner they all sailed to Cabo for fishing. (All setups for more Marcia-style mischief). But when she was 9, he died of a burst appendix while on a train, bringing bull sperm back from the King Ranch. Her mother also died young, of ovarian cancer. Resolute and smart as a whip, Marcia raised her sister, then jetted through Stanford, earning a B.A in two years.

She found herself married and living in Minneapolis but longed for the beaches she played on as a child. When my husband was a boy, she would load him and his three siblings into a car and drive cross-country for summers in Santa Barbara. She always made little packages of meals — one labeled “Monday lunch,” another “Wednesday snack” — for that interminable car ride to the land of Gidget, surfer dudes and little deuce coupes. Her girlhood BFF (with nine kids of her own) hosted the hoard through the sunny, sandy summer days. No one wanted to go back, especially Marcia.

So, when her son Eric married a West Coast Girl, Marcia was thrilled. And when we stopped by for goodbye hugs and kisses on our move to Vashon, she loaded our car with little packages of meals, all labeled. Believe me, the woman could cook. Every cookbook she sent me (there were dozens) included scribbles in the columns on how she’d improved the recipe, with stars next to Eric’s favorites.

When we announced we were expecting a boy, boxes arrived with hand-knit sweaters and caps festooned with sea creatures. (All patterns, customized.) When it was time for a treehouse, she sent pictures torn from a magazine of the ideal, constructed from beach wood. (We built it.) She was right — it was the perfect treehouse — and I somehow had the grace and good fortune to realize it, time and again. A difficult concession? Not if you knew her. Her eye was impeccable. Her wit, wicked. And her approval of me, unfailing no matter the endeavor.

Born later, she would have been an artist. She settled for being a housewife who gave her son her silver spoons to melt down in his jewelry-making classes in high school. And who later gave her daughter-in-law equally precious gifts, like painting aprons with extra pockets, artistic platters for gallery openings and an unfailing “I LOVE you!” with every phone call.

But the best gift of all came about six months ago when dementia crept into her mind and she happily imagined herself back at her beloved seaside ranch. And guess who, out of all the people in heaven and on earth, she took in her fun-filled imagination to spend her final days with? Her son. Her grandson. And me.

— Margaret Heffelfinger is a freelance writer, artist and mother who lives on Vashon.