My Mother’s Legacy

Honestly, I’ve been working on this piece in fits and starts for the better part of a year. Occasionally I’d take a stab at it in an attempt to keep my head in the game. Then the pervasive busyness of every day life would impede those efforts. I’d get nowhere fast. Plus, its an emotionally complex challenge to seek the right words, procure them, and then arrange them, in a sensical way, to convey how important my mother was to my life.

First came all the questions … can I communicate what she meant to me in mere words? How do I write about her so someone who’s never met her understands the beautiful totality of who she was? What conventions can I employ to capture her essence? It’s daunting but the best I can offer is sharing a little about some of the things that encompassed my mother’s life. Undoubtedly, I will fall short but here goes nothin’.

My mother passed away from cancer 33 years ago when she was only 46 years old; I was 20 and had just started my junior year in college. My younger sister Elizabeth was 17 and finishing high school. My older sister Christine was a 24 year old newlywed and 6 weeks away from giving birth to her first child. Although we were young adults we were not adequately equipped to handle such a monumental loss. And now here we are, some 30 plus years later, the loss of our mother is no longer new territory for us. We’ve lived more years with her absence than with her presence in our lives.

Even though she had been battling cancer at the time it was somewhat surprising, I’d say shocking even, when she passed away. I suppose part of the reason is because it was almost inconceivable, that my mother could die. And as a general rule, most people don’t die from thyroid cancer. But when it’s metastasized, as in my mother’s case, they do. One of just many uncomfortable truths I had to try to wrap my head around well before I ever wanted to.

She had been sick for about a year and a half before she passed away. Still, it all felt too soon. It was unfair to her, and unfair to the rest of us, that she had to to leave so young. She had so much more to give. And quite honestly, so much more to receive while on this earth. I spent the better part of that next year trying to figure out how to live with this unimaginable loss. It had left a giant gaping hole in my heart and my life. I initially busied myself by doing for others. Those needs were plentiful, my older sister had a newborn and my younger sister had to finish her last year of high school. There was a lot I could throw myself into and worry about. Alas, that was only a temporary fix.

My mother’s death still didn’t sit well with me. I couldn’t make peace with it, but I knew I had to find a way. One day it came to me, an idea of how to do just that. What if the rest of my life was a testament to her, to my mother? Any of the good work I would do could be for me but also for her, as in her honor. I felt in doing so she could live on. And quite honestly, this was the only way I could reconcile her loss. I could not figure out any other way to make it okay. Because nothing about it was okay. This was the only reasonable solution that could allow me to live without her. Any good works I’d do would stand for me and her. It’s the only thing that made sense to me.

My mother had many gifts but caring for others was her specialty. After all, it was in her blood. Vincenza Constance Nolfo was born May 3, 1943 in Manhattan. She was the youngest of her siblings, three girls and a boy. Everyone called her by her nickname Zena her whole life, nee Vincenzena, a term of affection in Italian culture. Her parents, immigrants from Sicily, taught her there was nothing more important than family. Thus, as a first generation Italian-American girl success for her was strictly defined in the dutiful roles of mother and housewife. In that sense, she was highly successful. She demonstrated it in a myriad of ways.

I can talk about her prowess in the roles of domesticity. She was an at home seamstress. Everyone in our family had a Christmas stocking she had handsewn, my sisters, my cousins, aunts, uncles, all of us. Each name, expertly written in cursive with glue, glistened with glitter. She sewed matching nightgowns for my sisters and I to wear each Christmas Eve our whole lives. There are photos of the three of us in our nightgowns from each Christmas morning of our childhood standing on the staircase as we’re about to loot our stockings. My mother also included my best friend in this custom and sewed her a nightgown so she could match my sisters and I. That’s who she was, kind and generous, day in and day out.

She handcrafted our Halloween costumes each and every year. It’s the primary reason I’ve never purchased my boys a costume. I almost consider it cheating to buy one from the store. Like, what kind of mother doesn’t take her limited amount of free time to craft her children homemade costumes? Lazy mothers, that’s who. I was fully indoctrinated. My love is shown through the ingenuity I expend pulling together costumes from scratch. Just like my mother did before me. Thank you, Zena.

Another one of her specialties was creating custom Raggedy Ann dolls. She sewed these muslin dolls whenever someone in the family gave birth to a new baby. She then extended this practice for offspring of close family friends. The most thoughtful part of her handiwork was a handstitched heart with the words I LOVE YOU embroidered under the clothing on the doll’s body. It was a heartwarming surprise (pun intended). When my mother learned my cousin Joe felt left out she created Raggedy Andy just for him. She was light years ahead of her time in the empathy department by including my male cousin.

She was also well regarded as a great home cook and baker by everyone who knew her. Each and every Christmas she baked her annual collection of neapolitan cookies, linzer tarts, rugelach, reginas, struffoli, and more. I looked forward to working with my sisters cutting out and decorating sugar cookies with her at the holidays as a child. She baked dozens upon dozens of cookies. They weren’t just for us at home or for when our extended family got together for the holidays. They were to be gifted to everyone she knew at work and in the neighborhood. That’s how Zena did things.

If she knew what your favorite food was she’d make it for you. My high school boyfriend loved her stromboli, its a combination of cheese, veggies, and/or meat, rolled into a bread dough. She knew he loved it so she’d be sure to bake a pepperoni and mozzarella stromboli just for him each Christmas. Being thoughtful toward others was her default mechanism. It was just part of her natural operating system.

I remember hanging outside with the boy next door one day when I was about 13 years old. My mom came outside to get the mail and he yelled to her, “Hey Zena, what’s for dinner?” Rude, I thought to myself. He was often funny and forward like that. “Macaroni and meatballs”, she nonchalantly answered as she gathered the mail and invited him to dinner. She took no offense and welcomed him in. I stood, mouth agape, at his boldness. Who the hell was he to call my mother by her first name? But, my mom just rolled with it. She was cool like that.

But by God, could she rant and rave with the best of them! She was generally pretty patient and put up with a lot. Trust me, to this day I don’t know many people who can endure the loud ramblings that my sisters and I call “conversation” when we get together. My mother handled it day in and day out. But there was, on rare occasion, moments when she would fly off the handle and snap. Her soliloquy would undoubtedly include shouting a few choice words, a pounding of her chest here and there, and loudly telling us about ourselves. A lesser woman would’ve snapped much sooner. These outbursts were always well warranted.

In the world she inhabited all her energy and talents were used in service and stewardship of the family and home. I’ve already spoken about how she was an excellent seamstress, baker, and cook. She also took ceramics classes and shaped holiday mugs, casseroles, soup tureens, and custom pieces to gift to her loved ones. She made macramé plant holders and wall hangings. She cross stitched. She gardened. She was always involved in some type of project. I never really saw her with idle hands. When I became an adult I realized my mother was the first creative person I ever met. She just never got paid for it.

But, this is just a laundry list of a few things I remember from my childhood. A sampling of just some of the things she did with, and for, my sisters and I. Most important to getting a sense of who my mother was is understanding how she made you feel about yourself. She gave you her attention and engaged in meaningful conversation. She made you feel good about yourself. Her happiness for you was evident on her face. I knew that as long as I tried my best she was happy. No matter what I wanted to do in my life, if I gave my all I knew she would be in my corner. Knowing she was proud of me was the best feeling in the whole world.

My mother was naturally giving, nurturing, and loved her children fiercely. She’s the gold standard for me of how to parent and I try to impart much of what she gave me to my boys. Incorporating many of the same holiday traditions she gave us keeps me connected to her. In doing for my boys what she did for me I feel her spirit with us still today. I know it’s the same for my sisters with their children. In that way my mother’s legacy of love lives on in all of us. It will never be distinguished.