Last October, as the pandemic dragged on, my mother-in-law passed away.

She was 87 years-old and had been in poor health for a while, so I wasn’t surprised. At the same time, I was very surprised. Maggie was larger than life to me. She was unique, quirky, and completely different than my own mother. She was also the best mother-in-law I could have ever asked for.

Because of the circumstances, and because my husband and his siblings are private about such matters, only our family and friends were informed. There wasn’t even an obituary.

But today is our first Mother’s Day without her, and I couldn’t let it pass without paying tribute to the feisty woman who I credit for raising the man I married.

If this were an actual obituary, I’d be expected to provide the basic facts about Maggie that anyone could find on a genealogy site. I might even sprinkle in a few of her significant accomplishments. But a traditional obituary isn’t fitting for a woman like Maggie. Besides, the only interesting nugget from her early life, which I find incredibly entertaining, is the fact that, according to my husband, she once won a beauty pageant. She’ll probably start haunting me now for even making that public knowledge.

My husband tells me that his mom changed quite a bit from when he was a child to the time when I first met her. She wasn’t even called Maggie until all of her children were grown. My brother-in-law, Keith, started calling her that, and the name stuck. Growing up, she was called Marge, and, at some point, was dubbed Muff after Little Miss Muffet, apparently because she was so tiny. I don’t get the connection, but I wasn’t around back in the 1950’s either.

She never told me she was called Muff. I found out when I was attending a large meeting when we still lived in Charleston. I was sitting next to another Grand Dame, Helaine Rotgin. Maggie had worked on Helaine’s campaign for the WV State Legislature in the 1970’s, and Helaine was quite fond of her. As we waited for the meeting to start, Helaine turned to me and loudly yelled (yes, she yelled as she was getting hard of hearing)”How is Muff?” Everyone stopped and stared at me. All I could say was, “fine?” Only later did I get an explanation.

I shouldn’t have been surprised that Maggie had supported Helaine, who was a die-hard democrat, and to my knowledge, the first Jewish woman in the WV Legislature. Maggie herself was a die-hard Democrat. Shortly after Trump was elected and Maggie was still living on her own, I stopped by to visit while on a business trip in Charleston. She proudly showed me the Obama button she still wore every day “just to piss people off.” She was addicted to MSNBC and spent the last few years of her life raging against Trump. Unfortunately, she died when he was still president. I can only imagine how joyful she would have been about the Biden inauguration.

But Maggie, didn’t just watch television. Up until the last couple of years of her life, she was a voracious reader. I actually met her at the bookstore where she worked for years, and I didn’t leave the store empty handed. She picked out several books that, according to her, I “had to read.” That pattern continued for decades, and I spent many hours on the phone talking to Maggie about books. Her recommendations were always stellar.

Other than reading, Maggie’s favorite hobby was going to thrift stores before thrifting was cool. She had a talent for finding the coolest clothes and jewelry then gifting them to just the right person. Generally, her gifts were random as she wasn’t one for dedicating time and energy to celebrating holidays, with the exception of Halloween. I’ll never forget taking my then three- year-old son to her house for Halloween to find her dressed up as Eminem. No that’s not a mistake. She wasn’t dressed as M&M candies. She was dressed as Eminem the rapper.

That wasn’t the only time Maggie left me speechless. My husband and I had just started dating when Maggie struck up a friendship with her neighbor, a flaming gay guy at least thirty years her junior. I adored their friendship, but I became worried when he convinced her to start breaking into empty houses that were for sale just to “have a look around.” Thankfully, they were never caught and arrested.

Don’t get me wrong. Maggie was far from a criminal. In fact, she spent a good part of her life caring for her others. In addition to raising three children, she took care of her sister for years. She also cared for both of my children after they were born. In fact, she and my son had a bond that I never experienced with my own grandparents. Of course, the fact that he could cuss around her and she would cuss right back probably helped cement their relationship,

My children were her only grandchildren, and she adored them. My husband and I must have been arguing one of the only times I witnessed her get angry with him. “Trina will always be right,” she said. “She gave birth to my grandchildren, so I will always side with her.”

Oh how, I loved that woman.

As I as writing this, my husband walked in and asked what I was doing.

“I’m writing about your mom,” I said. “You know she’d hate that,” he replied.

He was right. Maggie would hate it. But she also deserves it.