One Special Lady

We buried Virginia Mae Dietterich, my wife’s mother and my mother-in-law, on Monday. (In case you’ve been wondering, that’s why I haven’t posted recently.)

My own mother had been killed by a drunk driver only about four years after I married. I’ve written about her before. (See https://dlpedit.wordpress.com/2018/04/24/growing-up-rich/ and https://dlpedit.wordpress.com/2016/05/06/reflections-on-mother.) I knew Mother for only 27 years. I knew my mother-in-law, however, for 42 years, so in many ways she was my surrogate mother.

Mom, as I came to call her, always cooked enough for an army, and if one left her table hungry, it was that person’s own fault. Rather, I found that most people left her table filled to the gullet, yet wanting more “for taste.”

If any attribute other than her culinary skills was mentioned, it usually dealt with her constant industry, especially in her lawn work. Mowing. Trimming. Pruning. Weeding. Mulching. Planting. And she was very particular in how she wanted these things done. That’s probably why she usually did all those things herself rather than “subbing it out” to others. Even when she did let others to do such jobs for her, she often later redid them the way she wanted them done. Such as the time she re-mowed her lawn the day after my wife and I had mowed it according to her specifications (or so we thought).

“Mom” Dietterich was some kind of special lady!

#writing #exemplars #writers #Memories #influence #familyhistory #family #heritage