“Now, don’t you call Diana’s baby, ‘Derwood.’ That’ll sound like you are making fun of him.”

Aunt Norma admonished her young children from referring to me with the nickname used by Endora for her son-in-law on the much-beloved television show, BEWITCHED, which had premiered the evening of my birth in September 1964.

Through the years, the cousins seemed to forget the challenge of using the nickname, but Aunt Norma never stopped calling me, “Derwood.”

Aunt Norma was my maternal grandfather’s younger sister who was full of life, filled with tons of laughter and mischief, and always a heart capable of loving the most unlovable of souls.  Throughout her life, Aunt Norma had tremendous struggles on a number of levels but she certainly had the capacity to overcome them.

I was blessed with wonderful great-uncles and great-aunts, siblings or in-laws to my grandparents, but I think even they would agree Aunt Norma was a class act, an act that was, and probably always will be the most unique of loving and lovable souls.

Thank you, Aunt Norma, for all your unwavering love and always, always, always, your tremendous sense of humor and laughter.

Know you are loved….

My mother with our cousin, Gary, and our Aunt Norma (right).