One year ago today, I received the following via text message:
August 28, 2025
Hi Cati…I finished with writing group a while ago and omigosh!! How I wish you could’ve been a butterfly in the corner listening in…it was such a phenomenal class…I guess I still feel a little (or a lot) energized by it!!!
I never know how the weekly prompts will be received—sometimes I give some pretty off the wall ones—and, I figure, I just have to trust it…but our group always responds so beautifully…and today was a real wow.
…since I’ve had this weekly “class” going since 2014, that means a whole lotta’ prompts have gone under the writing bridge—and some might be a little stale or seem repetitious……and I wish pain did not interfere with my life to the extent that it does because it makes it so hard & I wonder how much longer I will last—and then, and then! along comes a day like today & wow…it’s that knot tied at the end of your rope & you can hang on
& keep going…
…I just wanted to share with you the joy of today.
I hope all is well with you & yours and, as always, thanks for all you do…😘
This is the sort of text I would regularly receive from Mae. Warm, upbeat, looking for the next knot in an increasingly short rope. Now, one year later, Mae is gone.
The last time I saw her up and around was December 11, 2025, the day I took Mckenna, Inlandia’s new executive director, to her workshop to deliver the 2024 Writing from Inlandia anthologies. It was close to the end of my tenure. Mae turned our visit into a celebration: everyone brought snacks, including Mae, who baked cookies. Later that day, she texted me:
Ooooooh, Cati!! Gabby is in Panda Express…I am waiting in the car taking a peek at the anthology…ooops, she’s back…to be continued…
…anyway!!! I think I will have to buy yet ANOTHER copy of the book for Ann, the lady who bought my Dad’s house in North Dakota who invited me, then, on another trip, Me AND Betty to stay there…
(improper English to put me first, I know…) …we had such a disruptive childhood but it was wonderful to be able to stay there as adults…so many sad memories but also, the way Betty & I played…she was the joy on the clock of my childhood…the best friend of my adult life…and now, she has dementia…😪😪😪😪
Then, in early May, I heard from a mutual friend/one of Mae’s workshop participants, Jerry, that Mae had been diagnosed with cancer. It didn’t look good. In July, she was discharged home to hospice where her daughter Gabby and family took great care of her. It wasn’t long before I received word that if I wanted to visit her, it would need to be soon.
On July 14, I spent two delicious hours with her. I held her hand and we talked about the past, and how she was feeling. She was in good spirits and was ready to make her transition to whatever came next. She was in a lot of pain, but thankfully it seemed the medication was keeping that under control. She introduced me to her twin teen-aged granddaughters who talked about their driving lessons, getting ready to start senior year of high school, and daughter Gabby worked about the house keeping things in order and making sure her mom was getting everything she needed.
Over the last few weeks, Mae had lots of visitors from friends and loved ones, with her dog Cricket always nearby. She even had a birthday, turning 85. Then, on August 8, she died—on her own terms, with the people she loved most in the world by her side.
I only knew Mae for a relatively short period of time, comparatively speaking; about seventeen years. I first met her as part of the Inlandia Institute creative writing workshop led by Ruth Nolan, held in the lower-level quiet room at the downtown Riverside Public Library. Really, I barely knew her then, except for her warm smile.
When the inaugural Writing from Inlandia anthology came out, in 2011, she was at the launch at Back to the Grind. Looking back at this photo (below) now, I hardly recognize her. My time with Mae is more closely aligned with her later years. But I absolutely remember her there, that night.
She was already retired by that time, just turning the corner into her seventies. Later, she founded a creative writing workshop at her local senior center, which she called Joslyn Joy Writers. She was a beloved instructor, maxing out enrollment with some twenty-something-odd participants, all senior citizens from varying walks of life.
As a longtime Inlandia member, Mae approached me about bringing her workshop under the Inlandia umbrella so that they, too, could have the opportunity to be published in the anthology. She wanted that for them. Few if any of her participants considered themselves professional writers before her workshop, but under her guidance they each wrote and shared and revised and published. Many of them had next to no computer skills, but the anthology contributions had strict submission requirements: Times New Roman, 12pt, 1” margins, and so on. She would work with them to type in their work or recruit another computer-savvy participant to help them type it up and she would proofread the works for her group. For most if not all, this would be their first publication. All of them were, rightfully, proud and happy to be included, and Mae made that happen.
During the pandemic, when the world shut down, seniors were some of the most affected. Inlandia had received a grant for technology and purchased practical, inexpensive laptops so that everyone regardless of income could join the workshops should they choose to. I took one of these laptops out to Mae to her home in Redlands. It was a learning curve but she was determined. Then, also, anyone in workshop could get a laptop if they needed one. Soon, her workshop was up and running virtually on Zoom. Mae understood that the connectedness of her group was what gave meaning to their lives and despite how big of a pain it was, she persevered through all of the technological difficulties that would ensue over the coming months.
When it was time to return to the center, some of the participants were not ready, while others meanwhile had moved out of state. Mae, now in her eighties, decided that she would run the workshop hybrid so that no one would be left out.
Mae was a prolific writer and her stories and she often wrote about her experiences as a journalist and educator for the Inlandia Literary Journeys column. This was her bio, which says a whole lot about how she viewed herself, what she put first in her life, and her diverse career across many fields:
Mae Wagner Marinello is a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She is a former newspaper reporter/photographer/columnist, dental receptionist, law-enforcement dispatcher, superior court clerk, late-in-life teacher and longtime Inlandia workshop leader in Redlands.
Read Mae’s Inlandia Literary Journeys columns
For the 2020 Writing from Inlandia anthology, it was a special pandemic issue. Mae’s students, out of gratitude for all that she did to keep them together through thick and thin, collaborated on the poem below. It resonates even more deeply now that she is gone.
Mae, you were loved, and you loved in equal measure. Everyone knew your heart.
You will be missed.
She sounds lovely. I am so sorry for your loss.
What someone like me, a sewist, can’t help but notice in the last photo is Mae’s quilt. I wonder whether she made it (another talent to add to her list!) or if it was made for her (a tangible representation of the love others had for her).
Thank you for this beautiful, heartfelt, loving, tribute to Mae. It’s a portrait of your friendship with her. It is also a portrait of Mae’s evolution, and that of her students.