Calico Vegetables

An old Yiddish saying goes, “Man plans, and God laughs.” Aunt Mimi and I always assumed that since she was the youngest, that she’d be the last of the Dobson sisters to survive. We’d planned that if she needed to, she could come live with me in Columbia. My girlfriends joked that she’d be joining us for happy hour and “oohing” and “aahing” over everyone’s latest shoes and fashions well into her nineties. Well, God laughed.

Aunt Mary was the first of