Childhood memories of Mom

Hardworking and then some

Raised in a large family under modest circumstances, mom had an outsized work ethic and a strong sense of responsibility. Stretched thin between her full time job at a publishing house and endless household chores, she was spending most of her time either working or trying to rest - and, sadly, not succeeding too well at the latter. Mom always got up very early in the morning, at least a couple of hours before she needed to leave for her job. And she usually spent that entire time cooking and baking or washing clothes - by hand! - as well as preparing breakfast and day snacks for me, my sister and dad.

I remember marveling at how much she was able to accomplish while most people, including the rest of us in the apartment, were still in bed. And that wasn’t all! Mom’s bus commute to the office often included detours to various food stores in an effort to catch early morning deliveries of rare and ‘precious’ items such as bread, eggs or butter. She knew that, by the time she finished work, these would be long sold out. Also, most afternoons, instead of coming straight home, she would go to the farmers market. I think she liked it there, she enjoyed bargaining, and she would often bring home fresh vegetables and fruit, along with flowers.

Carrying heavy bags, she would finally get to our apartment door around five o clock, exhausted, arms hurting and a nervous wreck. And, although she had very little energy left, she would start preparing supper, which she preferred to do all by herself. Aside from doing our school work, mom held me and my sister responsible for little else than dusting and cleaning the carpets in our small apartment. Occasionally, she’d ask us to run to the store to buy an ingredient that she needed quickly, but otherwise she didn’t expect, or even want, much help from us in the kitchen, especially at the end of the day. That would have required extra energy from her, which she didn’t have.

Working incessantly like that, and almost entirely alone, was truly exhausting but, to her, there was no other choice. In the evening, sometimes as early as eight o’clock, mom was trying to go to sleep and was getting really frustrated. And understandably so. For as far as I can remember, mom slept in the living room and she always went to bed well before the rest of us in the apartment. Either the TV was still on, or one of us was on the phone, or we would need to pass through from the kitchen to our bedroom or to the bathroom. And, no matter how hard we tried, we never managed to keep things quiet enough so she could rest. At the end of her rope, mom would complain that we ‘weren’t protecting her sleep’, ’că nu îi protejăm somnul’, and the atmosphere would become heated. Mom being upset with us at night is something that stuck with me over the years. Also, us getting up in the morning to a quiet apartment, our breakfast waiting on the kitchen table and mom already gone and on her way to the office. And so it went, her hardworking and sleep-deprived life, day in, day out. We didn’t know how lucky we were to have her.

A champion of reading

As far as I can remember, our small apartment has always been overflowing with books, newspapers and magazines. Crammed bookcases and bookshelves were lining the walls and piles of printed materials were lying on almost every surface, including in the kitchen and the bathroom. Growing up, I gradually realized that this made our home environment unusual and privileged, and that we had to thank mom for it.

Indeed, reading seemed almost sacrosanct to my mom, a rare joy in an otherwise grinding existence and something she loved discussing and sharing. Remarkably, this wasn’t a thing she had seen in her parents’ home. Rather, she had discovered and nurtured it herself. The only member of her family who went to university, mom studied languages and had been working in publishing houses since soon after her graduation. Over the years she became a true insider of the printed word realm nationwide, and she built an enviable home library, despite our very limited budget. I think that reading was a lifeline for her, and it became one for me, too.

But when did she have time to read? And where did she find the quiet and peace needed for it? At home, as far as I could see, her hands were more than full with housework. No way that she could do all that reading during her almost nonexistent free time. As it turned out, mom was able to do most of it at the office, in-between work tasks. Luckily, she could make it part of her job, I guess. And she also took advantage of her long bus rides and the waiting times at the bus stops - as we all did, in fact. Taking something to read with us while commuting to work or to school was habitual, as it would help us block out the crowds and tribulations of Bucharest’s infamous transit by losing ourselves in a magazine article or a book.

What kind of things did mom read and bring home to us? I feel tempted to say everything, because I remember all sorts of genres and topics and types of publications being on my radar at one point or another throughout my childhood. There were novels, stories, biographies, literary criticism, essays, poetry, and memoirs. Books, magazines and periodicals containing original works in Romanian, translations from foreign authors, and even publications in other languages such as French, Italian and English. From philosophy, politics and history to romance, nutrition, and cinematography, mom wasn’t only an avid reader but a collector, too.

A big reason why books were so treasured in our house was somewhat hidden to me as a child. In a dictatorship, such as the one we were living in, reading was a subversive activity, which made it particularly significant and thrilling. Once I understood this, in high-school, I started to see mom’s single-mindedness about reading and books under a new light and my appreciation of her grew. And I wasn’t the only one. Recently, on Whatsapp, a high-school friend fondly recalled having read Boris Pasternak only because we owned a French translation that mom lent to her. Indeed, this side of my mom has touched many lives, many more than she herself realized and well beyond our immediate family.

În ciuda unei boli devastatoare, mama a rămas o persoană dârză până la capătul vieții. Spre sfârșit mi se părea că se zbate precum peștele pe uscat, că dârzenia ei nu mai aduce nimic bun, ci doar îi amplifică suferința. Însă cred că aceasta era o trăsătură atât de adânc întipărită în ea încât nu o putea lepăda, și să fi vrut.

De unde venea această dârzenie? Eu mi-o explic, în parte, prin felul în care a crescut, ea fiind unul dintre cei șase copii ai unei familii modeste, unde a trebuit să pună osul de când era mică. De fapt tot de acolo cred că i se trăgeau puterea de muncă și simțul datoriei, amândouă prezente în abundență la mama, intr-o măsură greu de egalat.

Mama a învățat să trăiască pe picioarele proprii foarte devreme în viață, și îi displăcea profund să depindă de alții sau să fie percepută drept o povară. Mai mult decât atât, ea arăta o adevărată abnegație pentru familie, un spirit de sacrificiu care devenise o a doua natură și care, pe mine una, mă impresiona.

Îmi amintesc cât de impresionată am fost când, într-o vară din ultimii zece ani, eram la mama în București și am văzut cu ochii mei cât de repede a reușit să pregătească o primire cu-adevărat împărătească pentru o nepoată din Canada care venea în vizită la ea. Mie efortul ei mi s-a părut uriaș, ba chiar riscant, date fiind anumite probleme de sănătate pe care le avusese recent. Era o zi extrem de călduroasă în București, iar mama încă nu avea instalat nici-un sistem de răcire in apartament. Însă era evident că ceea ce conta mai mult decât orice pentru ea în acel moment era să o bucure pe nepoată. De aceea, spre marea mea uimire, căldura parcă nici nu mai exista.

Mama punea cărțile și cititul mai presus decât aproape orice pe lumea asta, ceea ce mi-a devenit propriu si mie, peste ani – un lucru pentru care îi sunt în mod special recunoscătoare. Să se cufunde într-o carte sau într-un articol de revistă și să descopere idei, reflecții sau personaje interesante erau plăceri deosebite pentru ea, pe care se bucura enorm să le împartă cu noi. De fapt, mama citea cu creionul în mână și obișnuia să sublinieze pasajele pe care găsea interesante pentru ca apoi să ni le poată citi și nouă.

În ultimele luni, când nu mai putea citi singură, i-am citit eu din anumite cărți pe care știam că le iubise. Una dintre aceste cărți a fost Convorbiri cu regele Mihai, iar cea mai recentă, de fapt ultima carte din care i-am citit și care cred că i-a adus plăcere - sper cel puțin - a fost Don Quijote în Est, de Octavian Paler. Din când în când, în timp ce-i citeam, expresia ei se schimba. Atunci eu mă opream și încercam să îi traduc expresia în cuvinte, încercând să ghicesc ce-ar fi avut de comentat. Acestea au fost printre ultimele momente frumoase pe care le-am petrecut cu mama.