"Is PFLAG for bubbies. too?" barked the rasping telephone voice one afternoon shortly after my son came out to his grandmother. She knew that Jon and I had found the support groups essential to our own coming out and full affirmation, but we were still a little surprised when the request came over the phone. "It?s a hard life for gay people, " she said. "I?d better learn a little about what a bubbie can do."

So she came with us to the Cedar Lane support group. She was about 82 years old, quite hard of hearing, and visually impaired, but I could hear her from the next room, barking out questions. "What?s the matter that you treat your child like that? Children don?t choose. I learned that from my grandson." "An old woman can say anything she wants," she would boast and that?s what she did that day.

Months later after hearing how parents have to also come out of the closet, Bubbie shared with us that people in her retirement home?s current events class had made some homophobic remarks. After one such session where the pride parade had been discussed, Bubbie left a very proud sounding message on our answering machine. "Your bubbie?s out of the closet, too!" Apparently someone in the class wondered who would go to such a parade. Bubbie spoke out with "What do you think ? gay people drop from the sky? My son and his family go because my grandson is gay."

On March 16, 1999, Helen Tuerk (Bubbie) died after a blessedly short illness at the age of 90. At her memorial service, PFLAG chapter member Sabina Cooper said: "This chain smoking, raspy voiced Diamond Lil of a mother-in-law was called by me and consequently all our friends, ?Mother Tuerk? because most of us never knew she even had a first name. She was simply Mother and Grandmother to us all."

When Joshua came out to his bubbie shortly after he came out to us, she simply said, "What ever you choose is fine by me. I love you." When he told her that most people don?t choose, she said, "Well, I didn?t know that ? but it makes no difference. I will still always love you."

So when Joshua and his sister Jenny described how much their bubbie meant to them at the funeral, there was no surprise for me. Joshua wrote in his eulogy, "Most of all, I felt safe in her home. It was a place where I could really be myself."

Jenny described how she and her bubbie would watch TV together ? not talking ? just holding hands. "I think the most important part of our relationship," Jenny wrote, "was that I loved her and she loved me and we each knew it well."

I could identify with that love because Mother Tuerk and I were always pals. When some of her friends expressed their concern that Jon wasn?t marrying someone Jewish, Mother Tuerk would say, "What? Are you crazy? You should be so lucky to get such a good daughter-in-law."

Mother Tuerk was born September 17, 1908, the tenth child in a Baltimore Jewish family of twelve children. She married at the age of 21 and worked as a teacher to put her husband, Isadore, through medical school. When their two sons were born several years later, she became a full-time wife and mother ? mother not only to her own family, but to everyone who entered their home.

When her husband was overseas in World War II, she volunteered as a Red Cross nurse?s aide. When my father-in-law became superintendent of Spring Grove State Hospital, and later the Commissioner of Mental Health for the state of Maryland, Mother Tuerk became a staunch volunteer. So when I became president of Metro DC PFLAG, Mother Tuerk said, "That?s the thing to do!" She reminded me how she had taken over as the den mother of a cub scout troop who didn?t want Jewish kids to belong. That took care of that!

When my husband Jon was in grade school and getting bad grades in writing, she was there setting the teacher straight. " Give him an A ? he?s going to be a doctor and doctors don?t need to know how to write!" Protecting your kids was the Tuerk thing to do.

When Mother Tuerk accompanied Jon and me on a speaking engagement at the MCC [Metropolitan Community Church] on Mother?s Day, she told the audience: "You fight for your kids! That?s what mothers do."

When Joshua?s partner, John, joined our family, Bubbie embraced him with open arms. He and Joshua would have weekly meals with her in the fancy dining room of her retirement home. They became favorites of all the older ladies who obviously enjoyed their company at meal times. When John had to work and couldn?t come, Mother Tuerk would protest "So where is John? Can?t he work some other night?"

And John was at her bedside those last two weeks and at her funeral. He was there like all of us ? being grateful for having been included in her life.

One thing about me that Bubbie couldn?t understand was my very apparent lack of prowess in the kitchen. Mother Tuerk was a woman who had 48 people to her small house for the Passover Seders and did all of the cooking herself. When my father-in-law became ill eleven years ago, I took over the family Seders and turned them into pot-luck affairs. She shrugged her shoulders and said, "I don?t know from Pot Luck ? I?ll bring the brisket. How many people are you inviting ? you have to invite everybody."

And that was her hallmark ? invite everybody, feed everybody, be kind and generous to everybody.

So yes, Bubbie, our PFLAG family is for bubbies.

I wish we had more like you.

And thanks to all our PFLAG friends who have expressed condolences in so many ways.