I met Marcy Diamond in 1960, when she was a 16-year-old high school junior and I was a 19-year-old high school dropout. I was working to help support myself and my family and basically in an aimless state. Shortly after we started dating, she introduced me to her parents.

Teddy was very pregnant with Gill and my first image of her was lying on the couch with a very prominent belly. She was resting from a hard day's housework. She was very welcoming and sweet to me, which, of course, is her nature. Later in the day, I met Willy when he returned from work. He was polite and quiet, not a man of many words.

I had wondered how I'd be received because I didn't have a diploma, I had a menial job, and was seemingly going nowhere. Obviously, they must have recognized some good qualities in me!

When I'd come to the house, which was almost daily, Teddy would often be preparing a meal. I felt a kitchen kinship with her because for many years, I did the cooking in my house while my parents both worked. But I had a lot to learn watching Teddy, apron on and hands white with flour, transforming inert ingredients into delectable knishes, or cookies, or pie, or Hamantaschen. These transformations were way above MY pay grade!

Teddy would talk about current affairs, especial events in Israel, inspiring me to dream of a time, which came a decade later, when Marcy and I would go there to live. But mostly, she spoke of the extended family... the joys, the mitzvahs, and the cohesion that frequently brought even distant cousins to events and holidays at their house.

Even before I married Marcy, Teddy and Willy embraced me as another son. They didn't have much choice as Marcy and I were inseparable once we met. My own parents died a few short years after our marriage, and it was very comforting for me to have my other family to be part of. They are the only grandparents my daughter Rachel ever knew.

My in-laws were always very supportive, right from the start of our marriage. The last day of our honeymoon, we arrived very late after an 8-hour drive to our new 1-room efficiency apartment and collapsed into our pull-out sofa bed. At 8:30 the next morning, Teddy and Willy knocked on our door. They wanted to see how we were and if we needed any help. Fortunately, they hadn't seen WHAT we were doing and we certainly didn't need any help.

Teddy and Willy and the whole Diamond-Heindisch clan have been the anchors of my life for 58 years. Through innumerable seders, meals in our sukkah, weddings, and childbirths, and simchas, and noches, and some occasional tsurres, they've been there... always helping and encouraging. How incredible lucky I've been to be part of this amazing clan and so, with sorrow and infinite gratitude, I celebrate the passing of my... Mother.