Judy M. Morris

Judy was born in a small town in North Carolina (Mary-Mother, Norwood-Father, Buddy & Frosty-older brothers, Jeanie & Sue-younger sisters). She grew up with a love of fishing, the ocean, and rebuilding old cars.

The joy in her life has always been her three children, Julie, April, and Matt.

Living in Provincetown MA Judy traveled to New Mexico for a women’s music festival. Coincidently Martha traveled from Phoenix to the same festival. They met by chance and after that their long-distance relationship grew. It became clear that they wanted to spend their lives together. Judy and her 3 children (10, 12 and 14 years old) moved to Phoenix in 1988, they began their life together as a family. They enjoyed adventures together including building a tree house in the grapefruit tree, weekend drives to discover AZ, camping, trips to play in the snow, to San Diego and the Pacific Ocean, etc.

While working fulltime and raising her children Judy finished psych tech training and went on to get her AA and her BA degrees. She dedicated herself to work that allowed her to share her love and deep commitment to helping others.

She worked as a psych tech at County Psych inpatient facility. She found positive interactions with the most complicated psychiatric patients. She showed them respect and communicated with a gentle understanding voice not always knowing what they could understand. Soon she was asked to transferred within the organization to be part of the team that opened the adolescent psych unit. She had a lasting impact on many of the staff and adolescents because of her quiet, caring demeanor.

Judy moved to an organization now known as Native American Connection (NAC). She coordinated the children’s services within the women’s and children’s inpatient substance abuse treatment program. The program allowed children to stay with their mothers during inpatient treatment and provided coaching for the mothers to enhance their parenting skills. She developed educational and developmental programs for the children. She also coordinated many services beyond the traditional treatment program to add warmth and love to the environment. There were many Christmas eves that Judy, Martha, Julie, April, and Matt went to the center to play Santa Clause and put out the many donated gifts that would be there for the families when they woke up Christmas morning.

As the organization grew Judy transitioned into Native American’s housing program that focused on services for graduates from treatment programs and homeless. Again, she focused on the services that helped the clients begin to feel whole and healthy again. The housing program gave Judy a new environment to share her creativity, patience, tolerance, consistency, insight, and love. Judy supervised the front-line staff assigned to address the client’s daily needs. She mentored the staff to draw on their personal patience, creativity, insight, and love to strengthen their ability to face the daily challenges of the complicated clients. In her “spare time”, Judy worked with community agencies to expand services available for the housing communities not traditionally covered. Some programs included a relationship with Hospice of the Valley for qualified housing clients, food bank days for community and housing clients, businesses donations of equipment and volunteer manpower to install a playground at a housing site, a process to assist homeless to regain their personal paperwork allowing them to apply for government funded housing programs, sewing machines for the senior program, resources for clients to gain food staples monthly from a NAC storage area, donations of Christmas presents, etc, etc, etc.

Judy was blessed with 7 grandchildren: Brandon 1992, Kaitlyn 1997, Alexia 1998, Bailey 2000, Morgan 2000, Kaleb 2000, Faith 2004. Judy and Martha had the honor of adding Brandon and Kaitlyn to their home when they were 5 and 10 years old and the privilege of sharing love daily with Morgan and Faith. Judy was saddened by the reality that she had less opportunity to share her time and love with Alexia, Bailey, and Kaleb though she sent them love every day in her thoughts! April’s husband, Rob, blessed the family with 3 additional grandchildren (Oryan, Melynda, and Taylor).

There were many family occasions including regular weekend breakfasts at the local bagel shop, Sunday dinners at home, pumpkin carving for Halloween, Christmas lights on the roof and in the front yard, graham cracker “ginger bread” house construction, birthday parties with big jumpies in the back yard, karaoke, movies screened in the back yard and piñatas filled with candy, Easter egg hunts (kids first then hidden again for the “big kids”!), and many pets including varied large dogs (Irish Wolfhounds, Great Pyrenees, and Australian Shepard mix), cats, and bunnies to provide needed therapy for all.

Judy loved the trips she took with her kids and grandkids. Trips to Sea World, Disneyland, the Pacific Ocean, Sedona, Carlsbad Caverns, Ontario Canada to visit Martha’s brother Ted and family, Yellowstone, NC beach to celebrate her mother’s 80th birthday, etc. She was especially proud of a special 12-year-old trip Martha and she shared with each grandchild. They enjoyed Hawaii, Hawaii with Brandon, Disney World with Kaitlyn, NYC with Morgan, and in October 2016 Maui, Hawaii with Faith. It was very important to Judy to complete her commitment to Faith and her 12-year-old trip, just a little early as Faith turns 12 on Christmas day 2016!

In September of 2014 Judy was diagnosed with stage 4 small cell lung cancer. She lived with the disease with the heart of a warrior and the soul of an angel. Her desire was to live life to the fullest, to enjoy every day, to share her love with her family and, for her kids and grandkids, to live an example on how to face life’s challenges in a positive way. Her intention in life was to live with grace and humility……and she did!! She lived a wonderful two years with challenging treatments and wonderful adventures including her bucket list trip to Alaska!! During the two years, her dream came true, she could legally marry her soulmate, best friend, and lover. After 26 years, she was finally able to share a legal relationship!!

Judy’s wish for each of you is to live your life to the fullest, to share your time and love with your family and friends, to challenge yourself to grow to your highest self, and to be proud of the person you are! A challenge is only as big as you make it. Her saying was always “I can do this”, and she believed you could too!

Donations in Judy’s memory can be made to:

UMOM New Day Centers, Inc.

3333 E. Van Buren St

Phoenix, AZ 85008

602-275-7852

Or a program for women and children in addiction recovery or a domestic violence shelter that you prefer.

Please join us in celebrating Judy's life Thursday, December 15, 2016 at 10:00 am at St. Joseph's Hospital Chapel 350 W. Thomas Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85013