Simple but complicated
Shirley Richter not only was my wife’s mother, she
also was Marice's best friend.
Marice talked on the phone with her mom every day, sometimes
for more than an hour. They shared
everything with each other, and whenever Marice had a problem, her mother was
the first person she consulted.
When Marice was pregnant with our second child, we went in
for an amniocentesis. After the OB/GYN at Big Baylor in Dallas completed the
procedure, which she had performed with the help of a powerful sonogram
machine, she asked us if we wanted to know the sex of the baby.
Since the amnio results would provide that anyway, we said
yes.
“Well,” she said, maneuvering the sonar wand around Marice’s
abdomen, “it’s definitely a boy.”
“What?” said a shocked Marice, who had been convinced she
was carrying another girl.
“Oh, sure,” the doctor replied confidently. “See, there’s
his penis.”
Marice cried all the way home. All her siblings were female,
as were her closest cousins. She knew nothing about raising a son. Neither did
her mother, the child-raising expert. How, my wife despaired, do you potty train
boys? I remained silent, acutely aware that you handle pregnant women delicately
even under the best of circumstances.
When we got home, Marice fled upstairs and slammed the
bedroom door. A few minutes later, Shirley called to see how the exam had gone.
“How’s Marice?” she asked. She’s upstairs crying, I replied.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” Shirley asked, alarmed.
“We’re having a little boy,” I said.
“Oh, I understand. Let me talk to Marice,” said Shirley, all
business now, ready to provide aid and comfort.
Mother and daughter weathered the crisis, and Ethan turned
out fine. In case you’re wondering, he was potty trained in the regular way –
stand here, aim there.
Shirley, the youngest of four children, was the unplanned offspring
of her Russian immigrant parents. Her big brothers spoiled her and her parents
doted on their baby girl.
In high school, she was popular and – in the vernacular of
the day – a dish. There’s a family photograph of her as a cheerleader, her smile
bright as sunshine and her hair cropped short and sassy. It’s easy to see why
she never lacked for suitors.
She ran her household with an iron fist clothed in a proper
white glove. Her husband adored her, her daughters revered her and her large
extended family recognized her as the glue that held them all together.
During Passover, she always prepared two Seder dinners on
successive nights. Each could seat as many as 30 guests. Shirley believed that
no one should be alone on the holidays, and there was always a place at her
table for such “orphans.”
She met her future husband, a besmitten Fred Richter, in community
college. And while she never got her degree, Shirley was well-read and had a
quick mind. For years, she served as the bookkeeper of her brother’s carpet
firm. She had strong opinions about almost everything.
Shirley would have liked this ornament. It’s a lot like her.
Simple, but complicated. Delicate, but an object of substance, created to
withstand the dings and dents of time. It’s as beautiful today as it was on the
day we bought it. And it absolutely commands the space on the tree where I
place it each year.
At the end of her life, Shirley waged a courageous battle
with cancer with her typical grace and generosity, thinking almost always of
her family first. As in everything else in her life, she met the end in her own
way.
When the time came, she left the hospital and went home.
There, surrounded by her three daughters, she died, a woman of dignity and
compassion and fortitude.
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