The first time I met her, she called me a dog. Inadvertently, of course. It was confusing -- meeting me and my dog at the same time, what with my dog having a sort of human female name. But still, there it was: your boyfriend's mother, calling you by your dog's name. Not the most promising start.

My then-boyfriend introduced me to his mother with great excitement. "You'll like her," he said. "She's really nice." We entered her Denver house together: Zach, me and my border collie/Australian shepherd mix, Lindy. His mother was nice, greeting us with a big smile and in warm tones, her voice lightly laced with an accent I later learned was Oklahoman. She had big, brown eyes, high, round cheekbones and dark, curly hair. A pretty woman, already then widowed several years. She must have been in her mid-50s then, but I was too young at the time -- mid 20s -- to think about her age. She was a mom. A mom I wanted to impress, but still mostly to me just a mom.

It only occurred to me later, years later, that she was not just a mom. But a woman. Even then lonely and heartbroken, widowed too young - as though there is ever a right time to be widowed - facing an uncertain financial future, accustomed to a lifestyle she even then must have known was no longer sustainable.

Her smile when she addressed me that day gave away none of it. "Lindy, would you like a drink?" she asked.

I blinked, befuddled. Lindy likely was thirsty, but I would have bet doughnuts to dollars she'd already found an open toilet. Then I realized she was speaking to me.

And so our relationship began. Sue Allen eventually became my mother-in-law, later my son's grandmother and soon after that, my ex-mother-in-law. Strained by the divorce, torn by the custody battle, our relationship - bound by my son - was always that of family.

Sue Allen died last Wednesday at the age of 79. She died alone, in a hospital, with tubes up her nose, a band Velcroed to her forehand, rubber strips of some sort holding yet another medical measuring tool cutting into her cheeks. The last time I saw her, her depleted body was little more than a slight rise under a white sheet. The last time her eyes opened to mine, they were big, brown moons in a face strangely smooth and youthfully shining illness.

Almost two decades passed between the first and the last time our eyes met.

In the time between, I remember countless evenings spent in her Denver home, with Zach's brother and sister, and later their spouses and husbands, gathered inside the sprawling townhouse. She loved antiques and the finer things in life. Her hair was always expertly done, clothes fashionable and flattering, nails professionally polished. She was without fail, and for every day that I knew her, ladylike and dignified.

Sue Allen also could cook, and I remember big, meat-centric meals, the cut of choice sometimes grilled, sometimes roasted for hours, the meals always framed by endless glasses of red wine and the smoke of cigarettes. She and all three of her children smoked. I was always trying in vain to escape, to find a piece of furniture, a corner of the home, not saturated with cigarette smoke. I never found it because this was just part of the drill, the price paid for good food and a soon-robust family that often overwhelmed me with its wide-ranging personalities and issues.

Sue was the anchor, and Zach, by default after his father's death, was second in line. Yet I sensed that the family had suffered an unbreakable kink in the chain when Sue's husband died, that their most solid member had fallen away, leaving them all slightly adrift. To this day, I wish I'd have known the family that existed in the days before his death.

I suffered my miscarriage in Sue Allen's bathroom. Shocked by blood while my ex-husband and I were shopping in Denver that day now almost 14 years distant, we retreated to her home. I heard her voice and Zach's rise and fall from the living room and smelled cigarette smoke as cramps rippled through my abdomen, as I passed what was distinctly a tiny and vague but wholly human form. I called them in to see it, then flushed it away from sight.

She wanted to be in the delivery room for Robby's birth, having missed that opportunity with her own daughter, but I refused. I was not her daughter. It was not my duty. Sometimes I still wonder if I did the right thing.

It was with a shock, almost 10 years later, to hear that she planned to testify against me in the custody battle her son and I waged years after our divorce, when I moved two hours away from the mountains to the city. According to the docket, she was prepared to testify about my frequent vacations, a handful of long weekends I had taken in the two years previous to visit what was, by that point, an ex-boyfriend.

I was furious at the idea these few days could be so blown out of proportion. Even more so, I felt betrayed that she planned to say damning words about me in a courtroom when she and I had never exchanged a harsh word. Whether or not she truly intended to testify I will never know. The decision came with shocking speed and minimal testimony, granting her son primary custody.

In the chaos immediately following, she tried to approach me. I stood in the hallway, conferring with the court advocate about the wisdom of an appeal, too stunned and outraged to cry.

I heard Sue's voice from a small knot of people at my left shoulder. She was talking to someone else, perhaps to Zach, but she intended her words to reach my ears.

"I hope Jane isn't mad at me," she said. "Why, Jane has some qualities I wish I had."

At that moment, I could not turn to acknowledge her. My pain was too raw, my anger all-consuming. I thought I might hit her if she came any closer. Yet all these years later, the words and not the anger I felt, stay with me.

I could divorce her son. But I could not divorce my son's grandmother. He loved her, and she spoiled him rotten. I could not keep them apart. So as families often do, we put the past behind us, never spoke of it again, and moved on with our relationship.

When I moved to Denver, and Zach and his wife moved farther away, it was me who ensured she saw her grandson, who came to dinner in her apartment, whom she hugged and called sweetheart and over whom she sometimes worried. I felt like a surrogate daughter, stepping in where Robby's father could not. At first, I thought Sue was treating me so well because she knew it was in her best interest, that she knew very well I was the bridge to her grandson, and the unrelated parent who lived closest to her.

That changed on a snowy December night, on my way home from her house. I had brought Robby there for an overnight stay. In spite of her protestations, I left for home, driving slowly but steadily down snow-thickened and silent Denver streets. Shortly after my return home, the phone rang. It was Sue, saying she'd wanted to be sure I made it home safe. "I've been worried about you since you left," she said.

A feeling of warmth spread through me at the tender and genuine care and concern in her voice.

"OK, well I'm glad you're safe," she said. "I love you. Goodnight."

Though she had the time, the personality and the looks to easily do so, Sue Allen never remarried. I never even knew her to date. She moved several times in the years I knew her, each time to a smaller place, each time leaving behind furniture and other pieces of a life receding ever further into the past. I never heard her complain about these changes, or speak with bitterness or sorrow about the direction her life had taken. In fact, I never heard her speak of it at all.

In those last couple of years, she worked in the front office of her apartment building in exchange for rent and Zach's two siblings moved into her small apartment with her, each for different reasons, each with financial challenges of their own. While it was not the life any of them would have chosen, it most certainly was not the life Sue Allen had envisioned for herself. On the phone or in person, she revealed none of this, her voice always bright and cheerful, her manner always welcoming and warm.

Earlier this summer, a routine surgery ended with a myriad of complications. And after only a few weeks home, Sue Allen was rushed back to the hospital with a blockage in her small intestine. More complications, including pneumonia, ensued. We visited her on a Sunday that last time, three days before she died.

She was aware of our presence for only a few moments, but even then, strapped to an army of instruments monitoring every flutter of life within her, she put on a cheerful face for Robby, her cheeks somehow rising in a smile around the tubes and straps.

"Did you have a nice birthday party?" she asked Robby, who'd celebrated his 13th birthday the day before.

And then, only seconds later, "Is the coffee ready yet?"

I thought she was out of it for good then, so we said goodbye and turned to go, stripping off the latex gloves we'd been required to wear in the ICU.

But then we heard her voice again, muffled and impossible to understand. We both turned and stepped closer to the bed.

"What did you say, Grandma?" Robby asked.

"Kiss me on the cheek?" she said distinctly.

The last time I saw Sue Allen, my son was touching his lips to her cheek, somehow finding an open patch of skin among all the tubes and bands lashed across her face. She smiled slightly and murmured something that might have been, "You're a good boy, Robby."