The End Of An Era

Diana Marich 1930 - 2025

The world lost a real firecracker; for Nancy, Joe, and me, we lost a Mom.

She was loud, stubborn, committed to her husband, and daddy’s little girl. She was the sergeant at arms for the neighborhood, keeping all us kids in line, and protected, from others that might not have been as happy as she to have us playing in the street where she could keep an eye on us all.

Mostly she had rules. Oh, they were nonsensical and arbitrary. They exasperated us to no end but she was steadfast in keeping them at all costs. There was zero flexibility of what she wanted and you could argue until the cows came home with no chance of changing her mind.

My favorite example of the insanity of her rules is this one: At the time we moved from Chicago to Arlington Heights the closest main intersection was State Rd and Evanston-Elgin Rd., now called Arlington Heights Rd and Golf Rd. They were both two lane lightly travelled streets. We were not allowed to cross them on foot or with our bikes. At the time I was ten years old and had enough experience walking and riding my bike to be given some slack to go across them to meet with friends to play baseball or hockey. Nope, it was forbidden. However, she had no problem, at the same age, to let me ride my bike on the side streets to downtown Arlington Heights, get on the train into the city, exit at Irving Park Rd., get on the bus to Clark Street and then walk the mile or so to Wrigley Field to see the Cubs game with my cousin. And that is just one of five hundred crazy examples I could share.

She believed that the best way to keep us in line was to smack us daily to let us know she was still in charge and watching what we were doing. She also believed that we needed to learn life lessons so we had chores. Every Saturday she would come into our rooms at six thirty, throw open the shades and tell us to get our lazy butts out of bed and get our chores done. We all had to strip the bed and wash the sheets and then remake the bed first. I then had to take every book off the wall of book shelves in the family room and dust the shelf and the books and trust me, she checked to make sure I didn’t just push the books back and dust the front.

She served breakfast at seven, lunch at noon, and dinner at five and if you weren’t there you either didn’t eat or you made your own meal. As she told us numerous times, “she wasn’t running a goddamn restaurant”. We took turns doing the ironing. This included sheets, hankies, and t-shirts. Why? Who knows, but it was another of her rules.

Later in life, after we kids were on our own, she and dad would travel to visit friends and family and would usually stay with them because nothing says I missed you like imposing yourself on them. Eventually they moved to the Coachella Valley and made a nice life for themselves enjoying the great weather all year and socializing with new friends made at the country club that dad joined for his golf fix. They were pretty happy and then dad’s kidneys finally stopped working and he passed. For the first time in her life she was alone and she was scared.

To her credit she survived, with the help of my brother who was in LA at the time, and her neighbors that looked out for her and helped her as best they could until Linda and I moved out here nine years ago to lend a hand. It was nearly seven years of navigating life on her own and she did it pretty well.

Until the end, she was an incredibly healthy human. She never had anything wrong with her until she was ninety-four. She drove herself until I had to take the car away when she was ninety-one. Her eyesight was failing and her reaction time wasn’t keeping up with her lead foot and every insurance company in California sent me a thank you note for doing it.

Today’s young parents would be mortified at her parenting techniques but it was all she knew and so that is how she did it. Today she would likely have DCFS called on her by the kids or a teacher would report her, but for us it was what it was. Did we like it, of course not, but we didn’t know any better so we just kept moving forward.

This is not to say she was a terrible mother; she wasn’t. We knew she cared about us and loved us in her own way even if she didn’t know how to physically show us very often. Like most kids and their parents, we fought. A lot. Mostly verbally, and ugly, but once we were done we moved on and returned to our normalcy. Disfunction is not even close to what we were.

All three of us kids had complicated relationships with her that would take too long to get into but we always had each other’s backs no matter how mad we might have been at the time. We knew that she would never let anyone harm us, that was her job, and only she would mete out the punishment. However, we grew up with security, food, shelter, and training on how to survive on our own, and that turned out to be all we needed growing up.

As an adult it was interesting to look back on my childhood and understand why she did the things she did, and as an adult, it was interesting to hear her tell people her versions of events that were wildly out of touch with how I remembered them. I guess selective amnesia helps you to cope with things you may not be so proud of that you’ve done.

Anyway, this story is to bring closure to a life of arguably the most important person in our lives, our mother. She was flawed, like we all are, but she tried to do the best she could do for us, and mostly she was successful. She managed to keep three kids alive who turned out to be pretty good people with successful and full lives and for that we are all grateful.

It won’t be the same going forward without her.