mothers | Eyerollingmom

My mom was a witch. I mean, not in the literal sense (although you might not want to ask my junior high friends; that’s an unfairly rough period to judge). But she was super-superstitious. I spent my entire life watching her toss salt over her shoulder and muttering nutso things all the time. Not the typical warnings of black cats and broken backs; more like ominous forewarnings of fate misfortunes, like having babies with horns or causing a wedding day catastrophe all because you’d carelessly added oregano into your red sauce.

When my high school boyfriend gave me pearl earrings for Christmas she sniffed, “Pearls mean tears.” She said nothing else.

Um, okay?

In fairness, he was kind of a jerk and her spidey sense for Wrong Boys was keenly aware of this way before my adolescence picked up on it but her remark alone clearly seeped into my subconscious. I’ve never really been a fan of that jewelry (and, for this Long Island girl, ignoring that accessory was an 80s struggle for sure. Thanks, Madonna). But the truth is that boy caused A LOT of tears so who knows, maybe she was right.

But there were others, and most came void of any logic or rationale. You just obeyed.

Never put your shoes on the table. I do not. Never have.

Never open your shower gifts with scissors. Think that’s easy? Try it.

Don’t wear black when you’re pregnant. I never really heeded this until I was strolling through NY’s San Gennaro feast in the ninth month of my first pregnancy. Now, this is a typical street festive, where booths and food trucks line the avenue and you gain weight from the smells alone. It was summer, and right before the start of my maternity leave. I was wearing a spectacular solid black, A-frame swing dress that I’d ordered from a (gasp!) catalog. It was perfect for my unforgiving girth and I could wear it even after the baby came. Back in the pre-Amazon day you seriously took your chances with mail order clothing but this was a winner. It made my bloated brain convinced I looked like Audrey Hepburn. I bought two: the other was hot pink. Anyway, as I strolled the streets with a group of co-workers a very old woman started motioning to me from her food stand. I smiled and started making my way towards her (free sausage sample? All in, ma’am!). As I got closer I could see was definitely not smiling back, but rather she was shaking her head. She began wagging a wrinkled, crooked finger at me and started speaking in Italian. She gestured to my overall physique, kept muttering things I did not understand and made the sign of the cross before shooing me away in disgust.

I wore the hot pink number for the remaining weeks of the pregnancy and never (ever) told my mother. (Spoiler alert, the baby arrived without horns).

Crazy, right? This odd and offhand advice was naturally followed up with Don’t dress your baby in black so you can bet your sweet ass my kids have never looked like those sleek Kardashian kids. Good grief, so not work the risk.

I know all these tales of caution were the stuff of folklore handed down from her own mother. Once in childhood my grandmother once told me to never sleep on my left side. You’ll crush your heart, she whispered. Imagine a little girl waking up in a sweaty panic any time she woke in the middle of night to find she’d shifted to that position. Gah!

For most of my life I took this all in and didn’t push back much because frankly I didn’t have the gumption (ahh, old-fashioned elder respect) or Google (ahh, 90s) to argue.

But every now and then in adulthood I did.

My mom would always affirm odd numbered years were bad. Whenever something tragic occurred she’d remark knowingly, Well, it is an odd year….

I’d had it. With all the respect I could muster I politely yet adamantly refused to acquiesce. I pointed out that, in addition to getting married in an odd year (30 years in a few weeks, *smugly types with emphasis*) all four of my kids were born in odd years.

She drifted into thought for a few moments before nodding and smiling, You’re right she whispered. I’m sure she was taking inventory of all the endless blessings that came from her obedient daughter shielding her grandchildren from all that ebony clothing.

She shrugged and went on about her business, indifferent that I’d taken down her stink eye. Nonsense averted.

Boy, oh boy. Imagine my field day of smugness if she was here today having witnessed 2020.

Tina Drakakis blogs at Eyerollingmom and was featured in the 2014 Boston production of “Listen to Your Mother: Giving Motherhood a Microphone.” Her work has been featured in NPR’s “This I Believe” radio series yet she places “Most Popular 1984” on top of her list of achievements. (Next would be the home improvement reality TV show of 2003 but her kids won’t let her talk about that anymore). A witty mother of four, she takes on cyberspace as @Eyerollingmom on Twitter and Eyerollingmom on Facebook. and@Eyerollingmom on Instagram.

Missed the start of A Momoir? Catch up here:

Chapter 1, Click here: https://tinadrakakis.com/2017/07/29/a-collection-of-eyerolls-chapter-1-yes-billy-joel-we-will-all-go-down-together/

Chapter 2, Click here: https://tinadrakakis.com/2017/08/13/chapter-2-sometimes-kids-suck-a-lot/

Chapter 3, Click here: https://tinadrakakis.com/2017/09/22/chapter-3-sorry-were-tied-all-kids-are-filthy/

Chapter 4, Click here: https://tinadrakakis.com/2017/12/02/a-momoir-chapter-4-a-moms-plea-to-seth-rogen-enough-with-the-masturbation-already/

Chapter 5, Click here: https://tinadrakakis.com/2018/04/20/a-momoir-chapter-5-the-magnitude-of-the-middle-aged-mom/

Chapter 6: Click here: https://tinadrakakis.com/2018/08/24/a-momoir-chapter-6-im-not-always-like-you-mom-but-thats-okay/

Chapter 7: Click here: https://tinadrakakis.com/2018/12/01/a-momoir-chapter-7-hello-happiness-are-you-out-there-hello-hello/

Chapter 8: Click here: https://tinadrakakis.com/2019/06/14/a-momoir-chapter-7-high-school-graduation-my-big-fat-so-what/

Chapter 9: Click here: https://tinadrakakis.com/2019/08/12/a-momoir-chapter-9-parenting-horrific-behavior-would-you-know-could-you/

Chapter 10: Click here: A Momoir, Chapter 10: Coming Clean: The Art of Mastering Uncomfortable Conversations

Chapter 11: Click here: https://tinadrakakis.com/2020/02/22/a-momoir-chapter-11-how-many-back-in-my-days-until-you-officially-morph-into-your-mom/

Chapter 12: Click here: https://tinadrakakis.com/2020/03/17/a-momoir-chapter-12-when-a-teen-up-leaves/

Chapter 13: Click here: https://tinadrakakis.com/2020/07/24/a-momoir-chapter-13-covid-edition-or-rather-still-not-skinny/

me&mom2 (2)

And then, in the blink of an eye, cancer.

Exhale.

You can only stand on the outskirts for so long before it grabs you in. For first-timers, the words that are hurled from the onset are shattering.

“…tumors resting on three major veins…”

“…lesions on the brain…”

“…thirty percent…”

You find yourself gripped, nodding, stoically taking it all in (smartly, with a tape recorder going) and try to keep your composure because the last thing your mother – your rock – needs to witness is your own fear.

So you keep it together and let the world swish past you and do what you’re told. See this oncologist. Okay. Go to this radiology appointment. Got it. Get to this surgeon. Will do.

And before you know it you’ve spent a week – precious time in Cancerland – just preparing for battle. You spend your afternoons watching endless episodes of Law & Order: SVU and Dr. Phil and Judge Judy (because that, my friends, is the routine of retired people). But it’s okay. You welcome the mindless and the mundane. Much more happens in a week’s time.

You’ll start to hyperventilate in the middle of Kohl’s. When you do, your friends’ words will get you through it.

Your husband will realize what an insanely difficult job you have as a mom and will appreciate you like never before.

Your teens – with cell phones attached to their bodies like extra appendages – won’t even text to see how things are because they are so afraid to know.

Your little boys – usually so wry and animated – will sound small – like little boys — on the phone.

You’ll wonder if you sent out your bills before you left but then you won’t even care.

In fact, you will brilliantly assess with unapologetic clarity that so, so many questions and worries in life — actually, most of them — can be answered with a simple

“So what?”

Life throws curveballs. We get that.

Miscarriage. Infidelity. Death. Check, check, check. Been there. Done that. Me, too.

We’re women. We put on our big-girl panties and push up our sleeves and expertly deal with it. We sniff out friends who will drop everything and listen. We surround ourselves with other survivors and find strength. And we get through. There’s a shitload of wine. And there’s an abundance lot of tears. But we push through. Because we’re women and that’s what we do.

Women are so incredibly strong about everything that Life – laughably – almost seems to come easy. So Life keeps at it. We are so unfathomably unbreakable that Life keeps hurling us zinger after zinger after zinger until finally — eventually — it finds our Achilles Heel. Life gives us children.

And then Life zings us agin because these children – the very beings that make us crazy for a very good portion of our lives – become the very pillars that we depend on down the road.

So at this exact moment I am a pillar of strength for the most important woman in the world to me.

(* reposted from 2011. My mom passed a few months after this originally appeared. Of course I still lean lean on my exceptional tribe of women and my adored brood of children for Life’s continuation of zingers because well, that’s the easy part. xoxo)

Tina Drakakis blogs at Eyerollingmom and was featured in the 2014 Boston production of “Listen to Your Mother: Giving Motherhood a Microphone.” Her work has been featured in NPR’s “This I Believe” radio series yet she places “Most Popular 1984” on top of her list of achievements. (Next would be the home improvement reality TV show of 2003 but her kids won’t let her talk about that anymore). A witty mother of four, she takes on cyberspace as @Eyerollingmom on Twitter and Eyerollingmom on Facebook. and@Eyerollingmom on Instagram.

Missed the start of A Momoir? Catch up here: