Mother's Day 2025 is over. Norma June Wade Young Mahaffey passed away on March 25th, 2025 and I haven't written anything yet to remember or honor her. I started an obituary but the site platform didn't save what I had written and with everything else going on I didn't have the 'oomph' to start over again.
This isn't an obituary. These aren't 'just the highlight' of a great life. She had a great life, She had some amazing experiences and a full life. These are just some random, maybe painful, thoughts about my mom. I love her so much. I lost her years ago, so my grief on her death has a softer edge than if she had died suddenly with all her faculties.
I read This Blog Post and have been inspired to write about her. *This will be a work in progress over a few posts. Her life allowed me to be here, and like all of us, there's substance to who she was and how she impacted my life and so many others.*
She was born in June of 1939 - the second youngest of 6 children. There was a younger brother born after her little brother John, but Stevie was adopted out and I understand my grandma 'kept tabs on him' and that he died quite young. Heart trouble, apparently; which runs in the family. My maternal grandfather Chauncey "Slim" Wade died at age 55 from heart issues. Her dad left when she was in the second grade. She also said that her dad had a terrible temper and she witnessed her dad beating her mom, Grandma "Jan" or "Jenny" and sometimes, more fittingly as I remember her, "Tense" Smith. Grandma (Smith) Wade was the oldest of 10 children, 9 girls and 1 brother, Herman.
This is important because mom cherished "Uncle Herm" who lived in, what we called back then, a mobile home park in Hemet, California with his second wife, Barbara. I don't believe uncle Herm had any children. After he passed away, Aunt Barb gave me a beautiful set of silver that he had picked up while overseas during WWII. Uncle Herm was a pastry chef, a wonderful cook and had so many stories! My memories of him are few, but extremely fond, and Aunt Barb was a bit of a kook, she had an odd son, whom I met only once, I think. She had definite "proper" and "unproper" ideas about how things should be done... but she also had a generous heart of gold and she noticed who people were. She's the one who gave me two beautiful floral music pictures painted on wood that are unusual and I love them and they still hang on my walls! For my 21st birthday they gave me a ukulele - purchased from an antique store that I didn't appreciate thoroughly at the time, I'm afraid. They both loved having us visit, and there was always beautiful table cloths, fine linens and china teacups and saucers. And I remember they had a "Love is.... " cartoon on their refrigerator. I wish I could remember what it said, but for some reason it was significant and I love that I remember that detail. I think it is memories of visiting them and my other great aunts and uncles in manufactured home parks that made me want to live in a manufactured home. Mom made a special effort to visit them, and she passed on to me by example that making an effort for people you love is important.
But, I digress...
Mom started working at age 15 and didn't stop working until 2000-something. She graduated high school in 1957 (she always enjoyed the Statler Brother's song, "Class of '57") and I am a little ashamed to admit I didn't keep very close track of years and dates... not like mom did! I am proud to say that I have become a "People Collector" as she was ~ a term my dad came up with to describe the myriad of friends my mom had (and stayed in touch with) throughout most of her life. Her lifetime, longtime good friends filled in for the family she wanted but never seemed fulfilled by.
Working is a theme for mom. A strong, highly-moral and ethical person; not to mention a woman of extremely high integrity coupled with the mindset of "it's not over until the project is complete and correct" type of worker, she annoyed a lot of people as values in the workplace started changing in the 1980s.
Mom always talked about being poor. The house she grew up in was small, and dingy (as she described it), but it was clean! She loved cleaning house! She took good care of the things she had, because she didn't have many things growing up. Dusting the almost-all wood furniture that graced our home with Old English furniture polish and vacuuming were often my Saturday chores. I remember one Saturday as I was polishing the dining room table and chairs and really hating it, she said something like, "Don't you love what a clean house smells like?" I think I rolled my teenage eyes. To this day I wouldn't say I enjoy cleaning as an activity, but of course I do like having things clean... and my problem is often I'll get in and clean with the toothbrush and cotton swab for 45 minutes... and miss the big picture clean for that 3-inches of gunk being cleaned out of the whatchamacallit in the corner. (lol!)
Mom had no filter. Sometimes the things that would come out of her mouth (!) I've told my favorite story about this so many times... I don't know if I've blogged it yet, but it will find its way in this post...
Mom stunted my growth by constantly "saving" me.
Mom loved having people over - setting a beautiful table, having friends come for Thanksgiving or Christmas. She loved my friends, and my friends remember her with so much affection. She was nosy and interested... I often would say that she could find out more about my friend(s) in 3 minutes that I would know about them after knowing them 2 years, lol! She asked a lot of questions. LOTS of questions and that was embarrassing to me. I let her know, and she told me that asking questions is a sign of interest in something. She wasn't wrong, but it didn't stop my embarrassment at the time.
Mom gave me terrible advice when I didn't know what to get my friend for her birthday. I think we were 7... maybe 8, maybe 9 years old. We were walking through the store and when I kept saying, "I don't know..." she told me that I should get my friend something *I* would want. Well, maybe as an kid that works for your peers; but she often gave me gifts that she would want/appreciate ~ that were not my taste, or a hobby or collection that I enjoyed.
Mom was a terrible teacher. Almost anytime she tried to teach me something she'd get frustrated and I'd end up hating whatever it was. The thing that comes to mind first is Quicken... she was one of those 'born organized' women who bore a creative child and she didn't know how to creatively teach me. That isn't a judgement as much as it is a realization that she wasn't capable of thinking too far outside of the box.
Mom had a knack for always creating a homey, welcoming place wherever she was living. She was a 'nester' - she had an easy home, a peaceful environment that made sense and was comfortable.
She wasn't empathetic - she was sympathetic and generous with her time, money and other resources. She took people in when they needed a place to stay, often. But she really struggled understanding how people ended up in the lifestyles they ended up living in - she couldn't put herself in someone else's shoes, not really. She loved her friends, even those whose lifestyles she couldn't understand... but she wasn't able to keep her mouth shut or her opinions to herself for the way they lived their life if she thought it was wrong or "bad." She struggled loving people 'where they were' or for who they are. Her old tapes of "right and wrong" and not being raised in a church tribe full of grace all contributed to this, and I know it made her very sad. And what made me so sad for her was that I think she truly didn't understand, on an internal or at a core level, what the problem was. I know these friends that discontinued relationships with her still loved her deeply, but sometimes you have to eject from your life the people who keep hurting you, even when you love each other.
Mom was my biggest fan. She told me early that I needed to make sure I always had music in my life. It took a couple people outside of us to open her eyes to the fact that I had some talent, but she was always encouraging me to do it. She wasn't a stage mom - she didn't push. I wonder what would have happened had she pushed me just a little bit. We were opposites in every way, really. She was born thin and naturally skinny despite her four food groups being cheese, chocolate, nuts and popcorn; while I was chunky and 'big boned' from the beginning and thought I was fat from age 8 on (not her doing, by the way) and preferred to sit and read and/or craft rather than be outside doing something active.
There's so much more - and things to fill in, but that's it for today.
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