Behind Every Story Is Another Story & Our Story Begins With Our Mother

As May comes to a close, for you, I have some more treasures written from our community of women. The theme being 'The women who have touched our lives in ways that have helped us to become the people we are today.' Behind every story is another story, and our story begins with our mother.
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I invite you to relax in your favorite chair or pillow, grab a warm drink and enjoy these stories...

From Mely:
"A life truly lived is a life worth rebuilding as many times as you need to.
Momma was the sixth child with four sisters and a brother. It was the 1920s when my grandparents uprooted from Spain and moved the family to Los Angeles, where my mom was born. She never had the chance to meet her father. He died while she was growing in her mother's belly.

The only thing I know about him is that he had blonde hair and blue eyes. I must've inherited my light hair and eyes from him. I'll never know why they made such a big, bold move other than the search for a better life for their children. My grandparents applied for their citizenship and set out to find their first home in America. They were very poor, and the death of Grandfather must've nearly broken them. After he died, Grandma was forced to work full-time to keep a modest roof over their heads. Leaving the countryside of Spain and being placed in a city like Los Angeles, Grandma must have felt like a foreigner in a foreign land.

Grandma was very proud to receive her citizenship, and although she was uneducated, she understood the value of hard work and the feeling of accomplishment that came with her independence. She was employed as a janitor at Cabrillo Elementary, just a few miles from where I was born. I am told that her floor, the third floor, was the cleanest in the entire school. Grandma was petit yet sturdy as an ox.  

She would single-handedly move each school desk with an attached desktop out into the hallway, then proceed to mop and wax the entire classroom floor. Each desk was cleaned and sanitized, each eraser washed, every ink well emptied and cleaned, windows streak-free, and then everything put back in its place. As hard as Grandma worked, Momma remembers times when she would go to bed hungry.

I realize now how little I know about my mother's childhood. I have more questions than answers. She didn't talk about it much, although she let me know she suffered abuse as a child, and I got a sense that she carried unresolved trauma. It felt as if she would have wished it away if only she could have.         

My mom was beautiful. She wore her Mexican heritage like a queen. Her deep dark eyes and hair perfectly coifed to compliment her tailor-made clothing and matching high heels, were enough to stop a clock. When she married my father, an all-American white boy from Oklahoma, she wed into a family that she felt didn't accept her. They were upper class. My grandfather was the president of a prominent oil corporation, a pilot and a developer of aero products still in use today.

I never had the chance to meet my father's mother. She died at a young age. Deep down, I think the difference in culture somehow made my mother feel 'less than' and her heritage a source of shame. She chose to refrain from speaking her native language to her children, and I wish she had. To this day, learning to speak the language remains on my bucket list.   
I was baby #5. Before I entered kindergarten, Mom suffered from a nervous breakdown – only I didn't know what was happening at the time. To a small child, it is very confusing and frightening to not know where your mother is and if she's coming back. I don't remember how long she was gone. I managed to tuck it away somewhere in the farthest corner of my past.

It took some time for the wiser part of me to learn that Mom, like her mother, felt misplaced and carried with her unresolved trauma. As the demands of daily living grew with each child, Momma worked even harder to make sure we had all the things that she never had – a beautiful house with expansive rolling gardens, catholic school and dance lessons.  

I remember looking forward to birthday parties, Easter egg hunts, BBQs, trips to the desert and mountains and my bedroom, complete with a dollhouse and toy kitchen where I would host tea parties for my dolls.

Mom became a mother just as soon as she became a wife. Mom tried to be there for everyone, everyone except herself, until finally when she no longer could, she was admitted to the sanitarium. She was exhausted emotionally, physically and spiritually. Mental health is not something we talked about then, even though it's a very real thing. I have very little recollection of that time other than my tender little heart felt left behind. I know my father's heart did, too.

Momma never gave up – we were her greatest joy in life, and she loved us with everything she had. Over time, I watched her rebuild herself through her faith, healing through therapy and self-study, forgiveness, exercise, medication, mentorship and the loving support of my father. Their devotion to each other and each of us never wavered.

Mom loved with a heart that breathed compassion because she understood what it feels like to know loss and the sadness of a broken heart. From Mom, I learned to love deeply, passionately and without regret – and that a life truly lived is a life worth rebuilding as many times as you need to.

Thank you, Momma. I realize now we were teaching each other all along."

From Maria Kindel:
"Mom was accepting of everyone and did not judge others. She did not believe in holding a grudge because we each have our weaknesses, and it's important to forgive each other. 

She shared her passion for living and travel with me – I treasure each adventure we shared and the travel diaries she kept. They are keepsakes for me now. 

Through her example, she taught me to go after what I want; don't wait for it to come to me; go and get it! I watched her rally in support of her passions for peace and protecting the environment, and she has instilled in me the very same passion."

From Lizzy:
"For as long as I can remember, my mom was always a constant in my life. Never was there a day that I came home and Mom wasn't there. I can remember family dinners prepared by her, filling the house with our favorite smell – it still brings a smile to my face to this day. It was a truly idyllic childhood filled with memories and the many freedoms that I hold dearly.

She remains the matriarch that holds our family together after losing Dad far too long ago. The 5 of us are so thankful to have Mom here with us, still celebrating together as a family, sharing vacations, watching movies, and whatever else we find ourselves doing. As a child of 5, we share in our time with Mom; it could be watching our favorite TV series or scary movie together, a delicious home-cooked meal – each visit a gift! And she knows she has a bedroom in each of our homes. 

As time goes on, it is a privilege to help take care of her. Our doctor's appointments are now a tradition of going out to lunch afterward, laughter, banter, and often sleepovers. She remains positive, takes things as they come, and has a great sense of humor about life's travails. For that, I am once again grateful.
  
We say we take care of her now, but we know she is always taking care of us and those around her. Thank you, Mom, we love you dearly!"

From Rebecca Lyn Gold, founder of YogicWriting.com:
"There's a story behind everything. Sometimes, the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. But behind all your stories is your mother's story because hers is where yours begins." ~ Mitch Albom

In the early 1950s, my mother was a cheerleader at Rogers High School in Newport, RI. She was brought up in a traditional Greek household, and among other "American" things, she was not allowed to wear makeup. So, she often borrowed lipstick from her fellow cheerleaders before a game. Her favorite color she remembers 'til this day was Tangy Red by Revlon. 

Unbeknownst to her and her friends, tuberculosis was still an epidemic in the 50s, and much like Covid, it was easily transmitted from someone who may not have been aware was carrying the disease. Or from a tube of lipstick. When it became clear that my mother was very sick, she was sent to a sanitarium for tuberculosis patients about 3 hours away from her home. She was quarantined and not allowed any visitors, although her father would make the drive every few months, and she would happily wave to him from the window of her second-floor hospital room. During her two years at the sanitarium, she witnessed many deaths, including her best friend and roommate, Clara.      

Fortunately, Mom fully recovered and was sent home at 15 years old. She tried to revisit her former active high school life, but was treated with kid gloves. My grandmother was worried that her daughter was weak and needed a man to take care of her, so a month after she graduated from high school, a marriage was arranged to a handsome Greek man that she barely knew. A year after that, my older sister was born.  

I arrived two years later, and two years after me, another daughter. Mom then suffered what was called a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for some months. She was told by her doctor that she was worn out and should not have any more children. But my father insisted they keep going until he had a son.  

By 29 years old, my mother had 4 children under the age of 10. My father could not cope with the turbulent changes of the 1960s and 70s. He tried to control my mother's every move, right down to the clothes he'd allow her to wear. His coping mechanism turned to alcohol, and the "perfect" Greek family started to unravel. When I was 14 years old, my father left one night and never returned. For the first time in her life, Mom had to work outside the home to support herself and her children.

We lost our 4-bedroom room in a suburban neighborhood and moved to a 2-bedroom apartment in a nearby city. Mom worked multiple jobs as a waitress and bartender in late-night restaurants and bowling alleys. She never complained about the hard work and long hours. She went from a stay-at-home mom to a mom who was never at home. She was now a mom who burned her bras, wore bell-bottom jeans and smoked pot.

A mom who went to rock 'n roll concerts on the back of her boyfriend's motorcycle. A mom who spent late nights on the beach with friends around a firepit until sunrise. A mom having a blast living out her lost teenage a years. A mom who forgot she had teenage kids.  

To her credit, she always provided a roof over our heads and food in the fridge, even though she lost track of where we were and who we were hanging out with. At one point, when I was 15 years old, I got on a Bonanza bus and traveled alone for 5 days to CA just for the heck of it. After a few days on the CA coast, I took a bus back home. My mother never even knew I was gone. 

My life has been strongly impacted by my mother's early trauma, her life as a young mother and her experience during the 1970s when she was spreading her wings for the first time. As Mitch Albom says, her story is where my story begins. I had many experiences that friends my age did not and could not have had. Some of them wonderful and some nearly cost me my life. I have always seen my mother as a remarkable, resilient woman, not someone who raised me. I fully understand and accept that she was doing the best she could, given her life circumstances. She is known for living life through rose-colored glasses, making lemonade out of lemons. I strive to have that same positive outlook whenever life gets me down. 

As the years went on, my mother turned out to be a pretty terrific grandmother and (great-grandmother) whom our kids adore. She never tires of telling stories of her life, her travels around the world, her three 'young' husbands and the meaning behind each one of her colorful tattoos. Today, Mom is as happy and positive about life at 84 years old as she was at 36. She continues to live every day to its fullest, with a tangy red smile and a glass half full of lemonade."

I hope you enjoyed this month's theme. It reminded me of the thread that runs through each of our lives – Just as our mothers faced their personal challenges in the only way that they knew how, we too face ours, perhaps in a different way, And through it all, we find wisdom, grace and strength.

Thank you for being here. I am so grateful!