February 22, 2015 A Last Request

My mom was born on Oct. 29, 1929...yes, the day of the great stock market crash. She was named Lillian Edith Bishop, the daughter of an English descent family in Pittsburgh.  She was raised by a German family in the neighborhood and became Stella Barbara Duderstadt. By the age of 21 she had a husband and two daughters.
 She added another name: Berberich.

My mom was barely 19 years older than me, the first born.  She never graduated from high school and didn't trust most things beyond her front door.  Sometimes for periods of time she never went through the front door.

Mom didn't do the things I wanted so badly. She didn't shop for outfits, go to lunch, be fashionable, help me pick out prom dresses or take me to find a wedding dress. She never talked of schooling except for one time.  

I was deciding on a class for a term in high school and she made the suggestion I try "typing"... because if I could type I could surely earn my own  living.  Something she could not do, as she was entirely, her whole life, dependent on  my father.  I became an expert typist on that "new" IBM Selectric with the ball. 130 words a minute accurately and I won a state contest. Looking back, we all want to impress our parents so much. I want to thank you mom, who knew the world would be typing into a computer or iPad or iPhone. 

Mom and dad had three girls, numerous sons-in-laws, 5 grandchildren and 4 great-grand children when they passed. Mom outlived dad by 3 months. 63 years they were married.. a tumultuous 63 years.

Today out on the farthest reach of a sand bar in the Gulf of Mexico, under a warm and beautiful sun... I scattered my moms ashes. It was a request she made to me several months before she passed. She knew she would be laid to rest with my father in the National Cemetery in Rittman Ohio where he was buried. 

She wanted  in the end to have her own place in the sun ... don't we all.

RIP mom.......your loving daughter, Diana