fromthemouthofmoi

  My mother opted for assisted suicide in November of this past year. I wish I could say more, but I really can’t. She’d had enough. There wasn’t much going on with her health other than a recent fall, she just didn’t want to go through another winter, she claimed. Neither her children could keep her here nor her pet dog.  I don’t really know who my mother was. She was a complete mystery. She had demons that only God knew about; personal insight was not her forte. She spoke French, Spanish, English, Latin, knew some Greek, and at one time was learning Mandarin. My father once told me that she spoke German fluently as well but hid that fact because of the war. Her father was from Buch, Germany. She used a lot of German words in my upbringing with a ‘gesundheit’ here and a ‘halt’ there. She was an exquisite painter, an excellent chef, and could look at fashion magazines and whip up clothing from sight alone. She never went to a beauty salon that I know of and instead cut her own...

  In part, Diane’s passing marks the end of an era. The end of a time in history when the work in HIV research was experimental and run by mavericks. Diane was a ‘maverick’ in the truest sense of the word. We all were no matter the discipline we worked in. We were trailblazers. Diane was a complex woman. If you didn’t come to know her she was just a tall British woman who put the fear of God in you. She was pragmatic, demanding, and proudly British, even though she confided in me that she felt much more American than British. Diane liked things just so. An inch either way would be enough for her to voice a strong opinion. Opinionated women can often be alarming, but in Diane I found a heroine. I admired and looked up to Diane. She was no-nonsense. I can remember her calling patients into her office for pelvic examinations with a loudly overheard: Let’s have a look-see, or a get those feet up in the stirrups. I am sure that had she been a man she’d have been reported into oblivion, ...