It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Maria Natalia Maddela, age 42, on May 25, 2024. Natalia passed peacefully with her family by her side after a courageous 16-month battle with breast cancer.

Natalia arrived into this world as an early Christmas gift to her parents, Domingo and Irene. After spending the first 3 years of her life in the Philippines, her family moved to St. Louis before settling down in Lyndhurst, NJ. While her childhood memories consisted mostly of family dinners of Filipino spaghetti and fried chicken, joyous summers with her massive family in St. Louis and sneaking in late night reading sessions with the use of a flashlight, Natalia eventually made her way to Rutgers University where she doubled majored in Political Science and Economics. Not quite ready to stop learning, she pursued a law degree at St. John’s University where she completed her Juris Doctor.

After passing the NJ bar, Natalia worked in corporate law and property tax law prior to settling into her final and most beloved job as General counsel at Cardella Waste Management for 12 years. This is where Natalia found her niche in her career and blossomed into the attorney that her personality and education were destined to lead her to.

As much as Natalia loved her job and career, her whole life changed when her babies came into this world. Her sole focus in life became giving her children everything that she could to enrich their lives: to teach them kindness and empathy, to show them love and how much they meant to her, and to give them everything she always wanted that she didn’t think was possible. They became her whole world and she would’ve done anything for them and she fought to stay with them for as long as she could.

“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years”. Natalia lived a life well beyond the 42 years she graced this planet. The places she traveled, the people she met, the experiences she lived are ones that many people don’t achieve in 100 years. She made sure to make every day count and spread kindness each and every day.

Natalia is survived by her husband Jonathan, her children Emelia and Gabriel, her sister Anna and her husband Jeff, her niece Addie, her parents Domingo and Irene, her Lolo and Lola, and a multitude of aunts, uncles, cousins, and countless other family and friends who will love and remember her.

Friends may visit with the family at the Vander May Wayne Colonial Funeral Home, 567 Ratzer Rd, Wayne, on Thursday May 30, 2024 from 4-8pm. Funeral services will be held at 9am on Friday May 31st from the funeral home, then to Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, 580 Ratzer Rd, Wayne where at 10am, a Funeral Mass will be offered. Following the funeral mass, Natalia will be laid to rest at Hillside Cemetery in Lyndhurst where she spent most of the childhood and shared her first home with her husband, Jonathan.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations in Natalia’s name to Back on My Feet NYC, a charity close to Natalia’s heart, would be greatly appreciated.

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