Shining like the sun. Smiling, having fun. Feeling like number one.
Monika came into my life when I was 10… she was the most glamours person I'd ever met…Daddy introduced us over tea in Claridges and I immediately fell in love with her.
She had big blond hair, wore a huge fur coat and white cowboy boots…as far as I was concerned, she was Abba.
Most of all she was fun, spontaneous and incredibly kind.
From that moment on every school holiday was a blast.. she made it so much more fun… skiing in Europe, summers in the States, which was the precursor to their eventual emigration in the early eighties.
She was very well known in the art world and owned two art galleries in Munich specializing in 17th and 19th Century Old Masters… there were always piles of transparencies of important paintings strewn in sleeves around her.
She introduced us to her ocelot Natascha, bought me a radler in a beer garden at 10, and taught me to drive stick in her white convertible VW bug at 11.
What I loved most about her was that she made my father accessible and was the bridge that I especially needed during those volatile teen years.
Even though they have not been together for almost 20 years, she will always be my step-mother and we continue to be extremely close to this day.
Now she splits her time between Palm Springs and Munich and still runs around in white cowboy boots no matter what time of year it is.
The kids call her Oma and we are all so thankful to have her in our lives.