Stephen Lee Wade - 1 September 1958 – 26 May 2018

 

Stephen Lee Wade

1 September 1958 – 26 May 2018

Stephen Lee Wade was born to Chester and Betty Wade September 1^st, 1958, in Sacramento, California.  He passed away on May 26^th, 2018, in Lynnwood, Washington at the group home where he lived. 

Stephen grew up to love music.  His favorite music was probably 1970’s rock, but he would listen to everything from folk music, rap music, all current rock, but not country music.  As soon as he got in the car, he was ready to adjust the radio to move if from whatever country music station, the radio was on.

Recently, a memory popped up in my Google Photos.  I don’t even know how to go back and find it. It was the last trip I made to Idaho with Stephen for a family reunion in 2017.  We were on our return trip to Washington and stopped in Pendleton, Oregon for lunch.  We left Pendleton and I was on the wrong road.  I didn’t say anything to Stephen as I was thinking, “Well, maybe we can go the scenic route for a while.”  I don’t remember if I had GPS on my phone then, but I clearly was not using it.  Anyway, I kept going the wrong way, and shortly, Stephen looked up from his book and announced, “Wrong way, wrong way.”  I said yes, maybe we should turn around.  I turned around and we got back to Pendleton and got back on the right road.  Well, the memory that just showed up this week showed a map, and I was going directly south of Pendleton on the road to Pilot Rock.  The memory made me smile.

One of Stephen’s favorite things was holidays.  He especially liked them if the holidays involved gifts.  Anything he got for the couple of months preceding Christmas, he wrapped up for his gifts.  Get a new toothbrush while visiting the dentist?  He would wrap it up.  Get a comb at the barber? Yep, he would wrap it up.  He and I would also shop periodically, and he got his usual cd’s and search-a-word books.  During this couple of months before Christmas, he would wrap these up for Christmas.    One year, as we gathered with the family, Carol’s girls noticed the Stephen was getting a lot of presents and asked why Stephen was getting so many!  He of course loved his birthday, and Easter and Halloween. 

I do not know who discovered that Stephen could do search-a-word puzzle books.  These were one on his favorite past times, along with listening to music.  He would do puzzles, but he really liked his puzzle books.  We would shop for them and if they didn’t have the month written on the book, he did not really want it.  I finally convinced him that he could write the month and year on the book and that satisfied him.