QFE: Our Mom

This is a placeholder post. I’ll come back later and write more about my amazing mother. Or maybe link to some other posts.

Mom’s official title was QFE—which stands for Queen of Fucking Everything. Here she is on her throne.

When she passed, the title passed to my sister Zorina.

People knew Mom as Judith Wolf. She didn’t like her first name, so she signed her name as E. Judith Wolf. The family knew her as Sister. As a kid, I learned her full name as “Edith Judith Sister Gaines Wolf.” She was a force in our lives and in the lives of everyone who knew her. I loved her and hated her and finally forgave her and myself, and now I just love her.

She died at age 94. Before she died, she had the best kind of dementia: she forgot everything that made her angry or hard and only remembered what was lovely and loving. All her resentments were forgotten. Well, most of them, anyway. Nobody’s perfect. Not even the QFE.

“Every day is a blessing,” she’d say in her later years. And it was. By the end, she’d say it several times in the same conversation. That was fine. Never hurts to be reminded.

She was a great joke-teller and storyteller, and we kids grew up learning how to tell stories and jokes. Some stories became classics.

I remember sitting on the porch at my brother’s house in Florida, telling her a joke. She was probably in her late 80’s, and her memory had already become relatively poor. But she’d taught us to laugh at death and disaster, so how could a failing memory be any different? So she and we would joke about it.

I don’t remember the joke I told her that day, but trust me, it was hilarious. She laughed. I laughed. I said: “Mom, one of the great things about you losing your memory is that I can tell you this same joke tomorrow and you’ll laugh again.”

She laughed and said: “Ahh, I already forgot it.”

One of my other favorite stories about Mom dates from when she was in her 70's or 80's.

She met a new neighbor who invited Mom for a visit. After some chit-chat, the neighbor asked Mom if she'd like a drink. "Sure," Mom said.

"What's your pleasure?" said the neighbor.

"Fucking," my Mom said. "But I think I'll have a black Russian"

Queen. Of. Fucking. Everything.

Update

Mom was born July 27, 1914. I wrote this two days ago. I’ve changed the publication date to match.

This is her 107th birthday. Happy birthday, Mom

“Thank you, darling,” says a raspy voice in my head.

Unmistakably, Mom.

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