To the woman I nicknamed with my uncle Wilde Rose, after one of her dish sets. But never dared tell her.
Dishes which were used to set the tables throughout an entire house (Küche, Wohnzimmer und Wohnstube) for Kaffee und Kuchen if the entire family was to be there. And then were washed and dried by hand.
To the woman who with a movement of her hand would let me know it was time to clear the table.
To the woman who taught me a guest should always be offered something to drink and their glasses should not sit empty. Yet, who would also tell you who could share a beer and who could not.
To the woman who put me in a stroller when I was an infant and cleaned classrooms as a janitor while my mother completed her contract with Lufthansa.
To the woman who turned off the water in an entire house while my sister was showering because she was wasting water.
To the woman who wouldn’t set a place at the lunch table for you if you slept past 11.
To the woman who pitted cherries, harvested and canned food. (I rarely ate produce from a grocery shelf during my childhood summer months.)
To the woman who would take a 20-30 minute nap on die Eckbank after cooking and completing the lunch dishes.
To the woman who once upon a time ran a small school supply shop out of an annex of her home.
To the woman who quietly told the stories of Germany over small boxes of photographs and albums.
To the woman who knew how to prepare a meal of game. And feed a large crowd off of the simplest of ingredients.
To the woman who would insist on playing another round of Skipbo or Rummikub until victory was hers. And watched you like a hawk, lest you make a false move.
To the woman who made pour over coffee since the beginning of time.
To the woman who told me my husband was ein guter Mann.
To the woman who expressed delight in how a cheeseburger had everything of the food groups in one. Alles ist dabei.
To the woman who would create a Klingelstorm of great magnitude on the mornings a flight back to the US would leave. Ringing her own home’s doorbell to make sure all were up and moving at 4:30 am to make it to the Frankfurter Flughafen on time because alarm clocks were not efficient enough.
To the woman who cared for my grandfather as diabetes took a toe and eventually a leg and knew what changes in sugar levels can do to a person.
To the woman who was her mother’s caregiver.
To the woman who kept her granddaughters while their mother flew home to bury their father.
To the woman who sat with me in the room and softly told stories as we watched my own mother leave the earth.
To the woman who watched Americans surround a household during a time of grief and finally understood why her daughter chose the States.
To the woman who had 3 girls of the 1980s and 90s visit each summer for 3 months every year with very American ways.
To the woman who kept us in check.
