This weekend, the world lost an incredible woman.

Marion Catlin Yetter was my mother-in-law and she could have been a role model for anyone wanting to look on the bright side of life. She always saw the glass half full. She loved yellow roses and fluffy clouds. Lobster rolls and the ocean. Spending time with her family and taking care of anybody who was fortunate enough to cross her path. And she loved dessert – any size, shape or form.

As my husband recently described her, she was “”all at once a devout realist and hopeless romantic, and someone who also recognized the value of a bunch of daisies”.

She was goodness and light. A sky filled with stars. The life of every party. A woman who loved to laugh and to dress up in her finest clothes. A gentle, quirky spirit who had more energy than many half her age.

I remember the time she put her heated lavender neck pillow in the microwave and set it for 20 minutes so that it burst into flames. And the times we’d play Scrabble with her and she’d sound out the letters under her breath, sending us into hysterical laughter as she sounded like Gollum from “Lord of the Rings”.

I remember every Christmas, receiving hand-made ornaments that she’d tenderly create for every member of her family to commemorate an occasion. The home-made strawberry jam which sits in our fridge. The Easter lilies she’d send us every year. Her grasshopper pie, that was a signature dessert at every family gathering.

She always loved a party. A reason to get together with family, friends or strangers (which, in Marion’s case, really were “friends she still had to meet”). At our wedding, she flitted from person to person like a hummingbird, introducing herself to everyone and dancing with anyone who’d dance with her.

Even though she was only in my life for less than ten years, we had many conversations about life and love and I learned what a powerful force she had been in her younger years.

She was instrumental in bringing an orchestra to her small home town in Massachusetts and arranged dance parties for the community. She helped organize the establishment of volunteer service for one-day surgery at her local hospital and, last week, was awarded a 50-year pin as a volunteer for the Board of Organized Work.

And, through it all, she was always there whenever anyone needed her. She always asked about my family and wanted to know how things were going with the Screaming Pillow (which were created just in time for her to see them). She constantly put others’ needs ahead of her own.

She slipped from this world on Friday morning — eased from this world with the grace and dignity that defined her life. Painlessly, peacefully and surrounded by love.

As my husband and I looked at the full moon two nights after we lost her, we felt her touch as the shimmering light reflected in the ocean.

And I can’t help but think she’s out there, playing Scrabble with her beloved husband, Jake, whispering the letters “ A-E-H-I-M-O-M” , as she spells out the words “I AM HOME”.