Part 1 – Vera Mae
One of the greatest gifts that age can give you is perspective. Things you once disliked, others you had a huge affinity for, all change in the light of 1, 2, 5, 10 years in the future. I always knew my Nana was different, but I never could quite put it into words. Not as a child, not even as a young adult. Nana – Vera Mae Evans – was born on February 14, 1925. I always loved that her birthday fell on Valentine’s Day. As a young bucket-head teenager, especially, I was lucky to never associate February 14th with grand expressions of love or getting gifts from your significant other. I associated it with Nana – and she was love. Nana was not a woman who yelled. She was not a strict disciplinarian. She reasoned, she talked, she listened. We never “acted up” anyway, because why would we? There was never an instance where she might babysit us while my mom worked and have a bad report upon my mom’s arrival. Everything was easy with Nana. And she was my first great example of what a mother (and a grandmother) should be.
One of my most vivid memories of her was one I thought was trivial when I was 25, but at 35 I see it a lot differently. I had just broken up with some boy, I think it was sophomore year of high school. And as is usually the case with teenage breakups the world was, in effect, over for me. I cried – like one of those deep, ugly, sobbing cries. But I didn’t like crying in front of other people, not about things that had hit me so close to home. I can’t remember if she walked in on me or if I went to her, but I do remember the both of us, just sitting there on her couch, while I sobbed inconsolably. I just laid my head on her shoulder as she put her arm around me and rested her cheek against my hair. She didn’t say anything. She just sat there. She held space for me, before “holding space” was a term people would come to use often. She didn’t tell me to get over it, to dry my eyes, that no boy was worth shedding all these tears over. She just sat there and let me feel. You have no idea how important that is, not just to any person, but especially to a 16-year-old girl.
When she died in 2013, my whole family was hit pretty hard. We had all seen her eventual decline – she’d suffered two mini-strokes and had senile dementia. Visits to the nursing home toward the end of her life were usually us talking over her while she slept. There was no interaction, and even though we were robbed of her long after her true spirit left her body, the loss was stabbing and heart-wrenching all the same. After I spoke at her funeral, we all went up to view the body before the casket was closed and I was flooded with the scent of her perfume – Red Door, Elizabeth Arden. I closed my eyes and I remembered all the times we would sit and talk, watch an old movie or listen to Frank Sinatra, read stories, cook, eat, make little trips downtown to go shopping. It’s funny how the sense of smell can make memory that much more vivid and impactful. But I was grateful for that moment. It reminded me of all the love Nana had brought to my life. And even though I don’t recall her saying “I love you,” I realized that her expression of love was in everything she did for us. Every meal prepared by her hands, every conversation, every time we ever sat together. Anything she ever did said, “I love you,” in unspoken ways. Born on the day designated for St. Valentine, she was the true expression of love. And how lucky was I to have experienced it.
Part 2 – Lisa Ann
If I could liken my mother to any animal, it would be a lioness. Growing up, Ma was fiercely protective of her three cubs but never overbearing. It was almost as if we all had an implicit understanding – there were certain things we could not do, not out of some antiquated sense of limited agency for children, but more for our safety. Any other issues we had were always discussed. We might’ve gotten hit with the, “Because I said so,” but I always understood that my mother had my best interests at heart, and she still does to this day.
My mother often trusted us with conversations and content that others might have thought were too “adult” for young children. No matter. We had the hard conversations and she trusted us to come to her whenever there was any issue. I always felt support and love from my mother, even in the hard times, and for all three of us throughout the years, there were plenty of those. But because she was that lioness, her stance on an issue was never mistaken and never wavering. She was able to see other sides of a situation, but her own perspective was crystal clear. She expressed it – we knew it.
To this day, I still don’t understand how my mother did what she did. The fact that she raised three girls, in Brooklyn, NY in the 90s – single mother, working and getting an advanced degree at the same time, on a city worker’s salary no less. We say the superheroes are in the comic books? No. That’s my mama. My mom is a superhero. Every day she left the house, she put on that cape, scaled the tallest buildings, put the bad guys in jail, finished her assignments and made it home in time to make dinner for us. And I can’t imagine what she must have been feeling, on the heels of a failed marriage and learning to navigate life as a newly single mother. My heart aches for the things she couldn’t express, the things she couldn’t show because she had three little women in tow, watching her every move and learning from her example.
My mother taught me about being incredibly strong – digging deep down into those reserves, testing your mettle, pushing, applying pressure, and coming through the other side a diamond. Her example is so blindingly bright to me, how dare I not work to be my absolute best with the example that she’s given me? She taught me to acknowledge other people’s stories, but to never lose the through line on my own. That my feelings are valid and deserve to be felt, whether other people would agree or not.
Part 3 – Cathy Marie
My mother-in-law was a very particular woman. Not overly emotional or sentimental, you knew that she cared through her actions, not her words. A fresh, delicious meal, a space in her home, a gift that had been chosen with care - this is how she showed her love. When I first met her, I was convinced that she didn't like me. I was taking her only son on a journey through marriage and partnership, out of her home and into the world that hold so many unknown variables. Over the 14 years that I knew her, our relationship grew closer. We came to a mutual understanding, one that as a mother of boys, I can feel at my core: I just want to be sure that you are good for my son, and that your future together holds more joy than pain. Her life was about her children and grandchildren. The sacrifices she made and the devotion she had to each of us (because I felt like one of her own) is something I hope to emulate in my time as a mother.
When she passed in June of 2020, in the weeks leading up to it, we knew that her decline would be swift. We were hopeful that maybe things would turn around, but in dealing with her preexisting conditions and the limitations that COVID brought along, we couldn't help but feel that we didn't have much time. The last time I saw her, I bought flowers (as I often did, just because). I always made it a point to honor her because she had given me my husband and by extension, my children - a large chunk of my life that I am forever grateful for and couldn't imagine any other way. She was still awake and present. She introduced me to the nurses as her daughter and told them how thoughtful I was. I hung up pictures of the boys where she could see them and just sat near hear, as she drifted in and out of sleep. I got a new phone some time last year, after her passing, and to my surprise, one of the most important pictures I had was transferred over: a screen shot of a text message she'd sent. It was a few days after my birthday and she told me that she did not forget, that she was searching for just the right thing but it still wouldn't be good enough. She told me not to worry, that she loved me and she wasn't going anywhere. This message has a special place in my heart because she hasn't gone anywhere. She is now my guardian angel and I feel her presence, especially on my hardest days.
