by My mother, Maria DeLuca McKee passed away this past Sunday morning at AMES Hospice, she was surrounded by family members and prayer. She was finally out of pain and not just the prior 25 days of hospice, but 70 years’ worth of suffering. I’ve always chuckled when people go on social media and whine about a sore throat or a cold, if only they knew of the actual suffering this woman went through and her faith in God never wavered during it. She will be laid out this Sunday 10/4 at Chambers Funeral Home in North Olmsted.
Upon her soul’s arrival into heaven, she met her Grandmother Lombardo for the first time, a beautiful woman who died when my own grandma DeLuca was a teenager. She saw her siblings Josephine and Peter as I’m sure Peter was ready to joke around tease her. Pete passed in 2004 and JoJo passed in 2010. We miss them terribly and now mom gets to spend eternity with them. She also saw her Aunts Fran and Angie along with her Uncle Nate.
I’m sure Gus ran up to her and licked her face, taking pride in being the only dog she ever liked. One of her best friends Cathy Wade, the most selfless human being I’ve ever met, was there to greet her as well. Cathy having passed in July of 2019, finally, they are re-united under Gods grace.
Most importantly, as she gets ready to meet Jesus Christ and God, she is greeted by her parents Grandma and Grandpa DeLuca. The two greatest human beings I have ever met and had the privelaged to call family. Mom gets to hold Grandma’s hand again, can there be a greater honor or joy? I think not!
As I sit down to work on this tribute, I can hear my own wife Emily working in the background, she is the embodiment of what my mom always wanted me to marry. A hard worker and faith loving woman, just like her. If I ever did anything to make my mom proud, I know it was that along with our beautiful daughters Maggie and Madelyn. I will get to all of that in a little bit.
My earliest memory of my mom was Easter morning in the early to mid-80’s. I couldn’t have been more than 4 or 5 years old but I remember it vividly. Mom was ironing a pair of white pants she intended to wear to Mass that day. And trust me, the white pants weren’t special to Easter Mass, we went to mass every single week, 52 weeks a year and a lot of times during the week for 7am mass at St. Patrick’s. Mass was always a part of life for us no matter how sick anyone was or how much snow was on the ground, we were going to mass.
Anyway, as she was ironing the pants that day, she mentioned how each time we took the holy communion and also repented for our sins, our soul became as clean as those white pants. It may seem silly to some, but every time I go to confession or take communion, I think about what my mom told me that morning and smile. The Eucharist or the ability to repent our sins via confession is not only a sacrament, but a gift from God to start over.
I’ll never forget my first day of school at St. Patrick’s, for some reason we didn’t need to wear uniforms until first grade, so in Kindergarten we could dress up a little bit and have some fun. Mom was all over that as my first day of school I wore a Hawaiian shirt with sharp looking pants. My second day I wore a “Lined” shirt. It was actually striped but in my little mind I thought it was called, “lined”.
My mom loved that I called it lined and this became a thing for the rest of my life. I would always buy shirts that had stripes on them because they reminded me of my mom. She loved to tease me about it too. Simple enough, but Ernie from Sesame Street was my favorite character and any way I could look like him, I was going to go for it.
Mom was the room mom for that same Kindergarten class and everyone grew to love her pretty quickly. I have two memories that will forever stand out from that year with her. She drew every single letter person and they looked incredible. She made these giant posterboard cutouts of each one and it was just the coolest thing! S for Super Sock and B for Buttons were my personal favorites!
The other, an emotional one to say the least but because of her epilepsy she could never drive. Then, in 1983 when I was a baby, she had brain surgery in Canada and was healed. She had to go 5 years without a seizure before they would allow her to get her driver’s license.
The day she finally got her license, they brought my class outside and we all cheered with signs and balloons as she drove into the St. Patrick’s parking lot. At 6 years old, it was the first time I realized what having pride in someone else meant. Sadly, I know some people that still have no clue how that feels or what that means, but I knew of it at 6 years old because of how I was raised.
She bought me my first journal, no, not a diary but a journal. Girls have diaries, I had a journal. She encouraged me to be a writer, and it changed my life. She always supported that passion and the faith of your mother, can change everything for the better. Look at what I’m doing right now? You’re reading this, you’re not listening to me sing it.
Holidays were always big for mom, she made them so special. We didn’t have much money but it didn’t matter, she made each one special. She was so artistic and creative it wasn’t even funny. She could draw and paint and was a wiz with face paint. She loved making my Halloween costumes and doing my face paint and crazy hair each year. I won best costume in third grade for being a skeleton because of how she did my hair and face. Fifth grade I was a punk rocker and won again. She always went way overboard but why not, she did it out of love!
Her and dad would go all out for New Years Eve parties as well. They would decorate the whole house and have a giant tarp on the ceiling to hold in pounds and pounds of balloons and confetti. At midnight my cousins and I would pull the string and everything would fall from the ceiling as the party reached a crescendo. Oh, and this wasn’t one year we did this as kids, this was every year into my teenage years.
As mentioned, we never had much money, but Christmas was special for mom. She made sure that we were taken care of and felt loved. I’ll never forget one year when she got me 4 giant boxes. One filled with action figures, one filled with hot wheel cars, one filled with comic books and one filled with baseball cards. It was my favorite Christmas.
She was so selfless, she always gave her time and love to everyone. From volunteering to cut hair at the Homeless Standdown when she could barely stand, to decades teaching PSR classes. Or, as she always called them, CCD. She gave her time and love.
Despite my extreme lack of vocal ability, I was somehow good enough for Acapella Choir in High School. Each year we would do a special Christmas show for the kids in the community and my parents would do the decorations. My Dad built Santa’s sled while my mom did all the artwork. I believe it was called, “Santa’s Frosted Follies”. It went well until Mrs. Ruple yanked on the sled and brought it tumbling to the ground. A story my dad loves to tell to this very day.
She used to give haircuts to all the girls I went to school with. They would come over and I knew that was the ONLY time some of the most popular girls I went to school with would ever set foot in my house. Lord knows how many cigarettes were shared during the hair sessions. I have to laugh, times were different back then, just know that. There was no, “going outside” to have a smoke. This was the 90’s folks, we lived differently.
Mom was an AMAZING cook, but my two favorite meals had to be her “Chicken Maria”, which was this shredded chicken casserole dish that became legendary for every family get together. The other was her fried chicken cutlets. Oh my GOD! I can taste them as I type this. Every year for my birthday it was chicken cutlets, cream corn, mashed potatoes and biscuits. I’d swim in it mouth open if I could. One of the final conversations I ever had with mom was about that exact meal.
I’ll never forget my first book signing at Stampers in Fairview at the time. The book was baseball related about my days playing and coaching so mom took all of my old jerseys and medals and had them framed. They were displayed on stage as I sat and signed books for those who attended. She was so amazing, always putting others first.
My all-time favorite prank involved mom as well. I was leaving for a weekend away in Cincinnati back in 02 while I still lived at home. Before I left, I set my parents alarm clocks to go off in their room at 15-minute intervals, starting at 4am on a Saturday morning. They each had one on their sides of the bed. I then set the one across the hall in my brother’s old room and then set the one in my room. Thus, from 4am – 5am, they would have a different alarm clock going off every fifteen minutes. As I began my trip, I realized that CVS up the street from us sold battery powered alarm clocks, so I made a stop there and purchased two more to bring home and quickly set up before I left.
On each side of the bed, they had these tiny end tables with aprons that went all the way down to the ground. Thus, I set two more clocks under each one to go off at 5:15 and 5:30.
I went to Cincinnati and forgot all about it. The next morning, I woke up to a phone call from mom and when I saw her name come across my phone, I remembered what I did and the fear of God entered me. I said, “hello”, and it was met with silence, a slow drag from a Newport Menthol 100 and then mom calmly said, “When you get home, you’re paying rent”.
Now, the toughest part, the part of this tribute that makes my hands tremble as I type it. Her final moments with my daughters. Emily and I gave Mom what she always wanted, granddaughters. Don and Abbie blessed her with Matt a few years earlier and it fulfilled her longstanding wish to be a grandma; she always wanted to be a grandma.
For us however, as much as I wanted son’s, it turned out that having girls was even better because it gave my mom that chance she always craved. She got to do their hair, pick out their outfits. She got to be a little girls “Maga” as they called her. Matt, Maggie and Madelyn Rose were her pride and joy. They were her everything.
The last time the girls saw mom alive was Sunday September 20th. She had been comatose for days before this. Laying there, not moving, not speaking, not blinking, basically just laying there. When the girls walked in to see her on that day her eyes popped wide open and she smiled and cried. If you look at the cover photo of this tribute, that is the exact photo that I used. It will forever be their last memory of their Maga. I don’t have the words to accurately describe that moment other then powerful and magical.
She would live 7 days after that and we spent every possible minute there we could. It was painful, I cannot even begin to describe the pain of losing her with this past week seeming like one long nightmare of a day.
I’ll say it again, mom was selfless, she put others first. I’m not joking when I say she went to over 400 wakes and funerals in her life, she was ALWAYS there for everyone. She was blessed with amazing friends like Camille, Jenny, Sue, Liz, Cathy Wade, Peggy Brennan Stockdale, Anita and so many others.
She was a member of the church, serving on parish council, eucharist ministry and so many other functions. Just the most God loving and Mother Mary advocate I’ve ever known.
May 1, 2017, will live in infamy and if you don’t know what happened that day all I can say is.
#FIGHTMARIAFIGHT
Mom, I will miss you and always love, you made me the man I am today. Nothing is free, nothing comes easy, work for what you want and always give back. Always!
Love you!
