I am a planner. One look at my month-at-a-glance calendar with all of its boxes filled and color-coded is enough to prove it. I think it runs in the family.

My Colombian-born husband on the other hand is more spontaneous. Seven years ago he moved to this country from Spain (where he’d spent about five years of his life.) We’d endured nine months apart while I worked to get him a fiancé visa so that he could enter the United States. Then on a Friday afternoon in September, he called to tell me that he’d left his appointment at the consulate that morning with visa in hand! I was overjoyed and asked him when he planned to come to the States. He told me that he’d already purchased his plane ticket and would be arriving on Monday!

I was overjoyed again but also shocked by this news! He was going to pack up and close the chapter on the last five years of his life (leave his job, say goodbye to family, friends, etc) in two days! That hardly seemed like enough time in my mind, but I guess love will make you spontaneous like that.

I think spontaneity runs in his family the same way that planning runs in mine. Yesterday my mother-in-law who lives in New York called to say that she was coming to visit. She was calling from the bus station and was just trying to determine which ticket to buy. She’s going to be starting training for a new job in a few weeks and doesn’t know when she might get a break in the months to come. Hence the hasty plans that had her arriving at the nearest bus terminal (an hour away!) at 3:05am.

When I heard the news that she was coming, my happiness over her visit was immediately clouded by some logistics. We are currently not even staying at our own house but rather my parent’s home, caring for my grandmother while my parents are out of town. Thus, we wouldn’t even be able to receive her in our home. On top of that is the fact that I will be out of town both this weekend and next weekend for work. My husband will be here, but lately he has had to work on Saturdays, meaning there could be more than a few days when she will be home alone. Since she doesn’t drive and speaks Spanish, her mobility in the state of Ohio is pretty limited.

At any rate, the fact that I was going to be less than the host that I would like to be and the general inconvenience of the timing was what I most considered when I thought about the visit. I think my husband sensed my feelings (I’m not the best at hiding them!). He also knew about all of the preparations for my upcoming trips that still needed to be made and apologized for adding an extra burden to me.

However, once my mother-in-law arrived, I realized how silly my preoccupations had been. For months my husband and I have been trying to plan a trip to New York to visit his mother and other family members. However, due to our hectic schedules, we have yet to make it happen. There has always been some reason that the timing “wasn’t right.”

In the end, my mother-in-law acted spontaneously, hopped a Greyhound bus and came to us. She isn’t worried about not being in our home, not being constantly entertained or even being left alone. She is just eager to spend as much time with us as she can in the moments we do have.

Her visit has made me think that perhaps it’s time for me to re-think my ideas of planning and timing. If we wait until the timing is perfect, sometimes we will be waiting forever. As my husband often reminds me, too often we have no time for our loved ones during their living years, but when they pass away, we miss work, using up our vacation time or taking unpaid time off; we spend lots of money buying plane or bus tickets; essentially, we do whatever we have to do in order to attend the funeral. What a backwards way of doing things!

As much as their unplanned antics can drive me crazy in the moment, I’m thankful to have a spontaneous husband and in-laws who keep this planner on her toes and teach her some very important lessons in the meantime. The timing may never be right, but that shouldn’t stop us from doing what matters most.