Happy Mother's Day, Di.

My mother was not my real mother.
She was the lady who married my dad back in the 1960s and they stayed together until she passed away coming up on 20 years ago now.
Her name was Dianna, But everybody called her Di.
I first met her when I moved from Fort Erie to Ottawa to live with her and my dad and Dianna's daughter Mary in Ottawa.
Dianna was what was known back then as an executive secretary. She was the gatekeeper to the then Federal Finance Minister, Walter Gordon, who was one of the truest Canadians I ever met.
I would go down to the Parliament buildings to have lunch with Di and she would point out and sometimes introduce me to some of the big time politicians and bureaucrats, including the Prime Minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, whose son Justin, our current Prime Minister, wasn't even born yet.
Dianna and my dad had a great marriage, because they loved to do the same things. Go to the races, drive down to Florida and sip cocktails all along the way.
After Walter Gordon left office, he returned to Toronto and we all followed. My dad took a job with the provincial immigration department and Di continued on as private sector gatekeeper for Mr. Gordon at his company, Canadian Corporate Management.
CCM was a company that worked to prevent the takeover of Canadian companies by American conglomerates. This was very honorable work. Di was extremely loyal to Mr Gordon and he was extremely appreciative of her as well.
When she retired, she found that she was a grandma on both sides of her family. We had two kids and her daughter Mary had one. She wasn't super good at being a grandma. She'd been a professional working woman all her life. She always seemed a little uncomfortable with the rug rats, but her heart was always in the right place.
We got along just fine, Di and I. And if the truth be told she was my very first cheerleader and the person who most strongly encouraged me to think seriously about becoming a writer. She used to type up my poems for me so I could work on them, and she suggested, when I got into Glendon College, that I major in philosophy so I could understand more about how real analytical thinking is done.
Dianna passed away in the 1990s but we had more 20 years of a great stepson/stepmother relationship. She got to have a great retirement with my dad and experience being a grandma for quite a while.
Our lives are filled with special people. Some of us have a lot of them. Some of us have a few.
I don't know where I stand on that continuum, but I know that Di is right at the top of the heap.
My real mom who wasn't my real mom.

Pic: (John Wild, photog): Our Wedding Day...my dad, Di, me, Heather, Heather's mom, May and dad, Ralph.