My mother, Evaggelia Psaltaki-Veneti, was born in Heraklion, Crete. I am deliberately hiding the date of her birth, since for me “beautiful” people don’t have an age.
Her parents got there as refugees from the “lost homelands” and specifically from Smyrna.
Αs I was growing up and studying the life of Asia Minor inhabitants, I started to understand that this nobility and glamour that mother exuded, maybe was a little associated with our ancestry.
Unfortunately, her father and grandfather to us, interrupted the course of her education, so that she could learn dressmaking and her sister embroidery.
Girls should primarily get married and create a family. That is how her parents thought. Grandpa had two daughters.
My mother will carry this cut off from her education for all her life, like an onerous load and she will make sure with all her heart, to give her children everything she was deprived of.
At the age of 17 she will travel to Athens, near her aunt, her father’s sister to do her internship in tailoring with her cousin who was already in the dressmaking field.
This cousin will later evolve to a self - taught painter, becoming in time an accomplished artist in the her art’s space. In the future, every time that mother would meet this cousin, she would take and kiss her “precious” hands, as a special expression of respect to her talent.
A new world unfolds before Evangelia’s eyes, that of the capital, with newfound knowledge, interesting associations, entertainment and perhaps the first innocent flirt of her youth.
In the future, she will talk about this period of her life with great enthusiasm. It was a piece of “the journey” which the supreme Alexandrian poet describes in a special way.
Early enough, at the young age of her twenty years, Evaggelia is married with Evaggelos Venetis, our father whose family had its roots in Asia Minor just like as hers and particularly in Aivali.
Even though they met from matchmaking, their encounter brought love and companionship.
Our father was a democratic person, honorable and progressive. I emotionally recall the first encyclopedia that came to our house from Athens, a gift of father to his children.
The couple will have two children, Vasilia, the firstborn and me Antonis, with a difference of five years. Our family life went on without any clouds.
At the promenade, whenever our mother would meet someone she knew, she would say “my children” and her face would take an expression as if God was revealed to her.
From my childhood years, I remember an affectionate mother, patient, full of tidiness and very clean, in our house and as far as herself was concerned. Mother sweet like sugar. Anything that she took care of, would become a masterpiece.
In the evenings, before she would lay in bed to sleep, she would make our school bags. She would sharpen our pencils so they would write better, she would clean the scribbled eraser, she would straighten the creased corners of our books and notebooks. She would dye our shoes and she would often stay up late to finish and spruce up our crafts. She would buy for us “classics and illustrated” from the bookstore that were works of world literature, condensed and simplified, with colored illustration to make the most of our free time -besides playing- by learning.
At the beginning of every school year, she would cover our books and notebooks with blue glue and a white transparent cover, and she would place labels on them.
At school celebrations, parades, gymnastic performances, Halloween parties, the two children with the care of their mother, looked like we just came out of a picture frame, starched and creaseless.
So was our mother, who was touched and proud and made sure to take souvenir photos.
All these things, reflect without a doubt what we call family.
In our house everything was always neatly arranged, in place, clean, in harmony.
Wardrobes and drawers had an enviable order. When you opened them, a scent of soap and lavender spread all over. We knew that we would find anything we needed in the right spot. We never lacked anything in our time of need.
In mother’s folksy wisdom, phrases like “It’s better to have something in excess than to miss it” flourished. In one version this means that if a person knocks on your door, isn’t it better if you have an extra plate of food to treat him? Humanity heritage, for the posterity.
We realized the changes of the seasons, when mother always brought home the first seasonal fruits to please us. The same thing happened in Christmas and on Easter, with representative ornaments and gifts. On our birthdays and our name days, mother invariably brought flowers and made halva. The house was filled with the smell of lemon, cinnamon and clove.
Everyday, mother would steal some time to take care of another love she had, flowers, and for wanting to thank her, the flowers blossomed and gave off their fragrance.
When the family had celebrations and joyful events, mother glowing, loved to dance and sing spontaneously. Her presence had a genuineness, a truth and a valiance. The same happened and on the celebration of Evaggelismos on the 25th of March, when mother and father had their name days at the same time. She took care of all the treats early enough and afterwards she would wait in the living room like a proper lady with the front door of the house open to relatives and friends who would come and visit to wish them for their name days, without an invitation required.
That was the tradition of the time. Father stood by her side, flawless and neat.
But also in everyday life, when mother used to leave the house even for the necessary, she was always well-dressed and had her hair tastefully styled. She liked beautiful things.
She was generous regarding everything, from the tip she would give, to the hospitality and the care she would take of our visitors.
A sweet smile lied upon her lips and an angelic voice made our life beautiful with her songs.
There are scenes that come to my mind, of a mother’s admiration to her daughter and sister to me, when she would bring at home her writings which had won the praise of her teachers and we would read them all together as a family and rejoice the girl’s progress and merit in letters.
Because of her apprenticeship in dressmaking, mother sewed the most beautiful dresses for her gorgeous daughter and we were all proud of her. The relatives who met her on the street would tell her “We found out that you have a beautiful daughter, we should meet her”. Mother’s face would then shine like there was an internal light inside her and it seemed like she grew taller.
Mother and daughter were friends and maybe mother saw in her child things that she would like to have accomplished in her life and that now she felt like she had a duty to stand by her.
I had the misfortune to get seriously ill in my childhood years. I had been in hospitals three times since the age of five. Later I felt guilty for giving mother a hard time, but I did not intend to.
The picture of a sweet feminine figure comes to my mind, as it had come out of a painting and when she bent down to hug and kiss me in the hospital bed, she exuded a freshness, something like a jasmine breeze. That's how it was recorded in my memory.
This mother stood by my in hard times with her essential presence, her embrace and her love. Two deep, in the color of honey eyes who were telling me without a voice “I am here, I love you, I will care for you and I will take care of you”. I realized in the future from my readings, that I was able to overcome the trauma of my years as a child in the hospitals due to this generously given maternal affection. Mother-shelter, blue sky.
At the age of forty-three, my father will suddenly pass away, when my mother was thirty-seven and I was eleven. My sister at the time was at the ending of the fifth grade of the six-grade middle school as it was back then.
Immediately this special mother will also take on the role of the man and on the occasion of my sister’s success at a university in Athens, the year after my father’s death she took us and we left Heraklion with a meagre pension in her luggage and the opposition of parents and relatives, who thought it impossible for her to make it.
Our mother visioned a better life for her children, with the completion of our studies and had decided to work for this purpose.
This extraordinary mother starts working until her daughter’s graduation from university, from which immediately after my sister gets married but mother continues to dedicate her life to her children and grandchildren with devotion until she falls seriously ill and is confined to her home with me.
Theretofore, everything was in her responsibility. In order to make leisure time for the rest of us, mother took care of everything that is required in a household, with a smile on her face, sweet-talking, putting an exemplary order wherever she passed from. Everything she touched, became masterful. Cooking, ironing, sewing.
When we bought new clothes, mother would examine the garment carefully inside-out. She would fasten a button here, cut a thread that was hanging there, sew a slip or a loop so she could hang a kitchen towel.
When a fabric got old, mother would cut and isolate the strong pieces, stitch them circumferentially at her sewing machine and thus provide auxiliary material for cleaning the house.
In mother’s household there weren’t any torn, worn or even cracked objects.
She would also make sure to do the same when we visited her mother’s or her sister’s house, since the years we still lived in Crete. Although my grandmother and my aunt initially objected, they humorously accepted the interference in their homes, perhaps because deep down their Asia Minor roots met.
Our trips abroad and inland, after her daughter’s marriage were a pleasant break in mother's daily routine. Trips that were gifted to us by my sister and brother-in-law as a thank you to mother's offer.
For mother these trips were a vast experience to hear about other’s culture and civilization, to open her horizons and free the mind from stereotypes and dogmatisms, which never bound our mother's judgement.
Some of the most memorable moments were when we went for strolls and visited various museums at her encouragement. Sometimes we would end up at Thisio for ouzo. We would then choose a restaurant with a view of the Acropolis, which she admired so much, and then I, at her urging, would recount events from the golden age of democracy, the personality of Socrates, the ancient theatre. She loved to hear about those years. Mother asked me questions and watched me with the absorption of a diligent student. I felt the satisfaction of a teacher who reaps the benefits of his students.
A special day in the life of her mother was our visit to the Museum of Asia Minor Culture, which Filio Haidemenou fought hard to create.
We had decided long ago that the various memorabilia we had in our house relating to Asia Minor would be better secured in this museum.
We gathered photographs, embroidery, lace and other material that we had in our hands, most importantly the baptism certificate of her father, George Psaltakis from Asia Minor, and visited the museum.
My mother, sitting in the large hall, answered all the questions of the woman in charge, so that the donated items could be properly recorded.
A little later, we notice that Filio Haidemenou is sitting in a corner of the hall and is narrating stories of her homeland to the attendees.
We approach and mother is astonished by the clarity and vividness with which Filio, in her advanced age, narrates pieces of Asia Minor's past and touches the visitors with her respectable presence.
Then, during our tour of the exhibition halls, mother will recognize portraits of family members on the walls, which some other donors had apparently given to the museum, and she will burst into tears. She explains to me that suddenly the narratives of her parents from the uprooting of the Asia Minor refugees came to life in front of her.
Often in our conversations, mother referred to relatives of her father and mother’s family describing mainly the good aspects of their character, behavior and habits. She was particularly impressed by the dynamism and the nimbleness of people.
I watched carefully even though I didn't know many of these people. I felt I had to empathize and show respect for mother's memories, which were a part of her world and her life. She possibly felt the need to entrust them to me, so that I could safeguard them and pass them on in turn, in case they might be preserved. After all, isn't that somehow the way history is written?
Mother always had a good word to say for everyone. She remembered the birthdays and name days of relatives and friends and reminded us to contact them for the usual greetings.
She was a great believer in love between people. When there is true love, she used to say, emphasizing and repeating the word true, then all obstacles are overcome.
She often made special mention of her niece, her sister's eldest daughter, who after a long and painful journey in life, is now in Boston, a biologist at Harvard University. She often told us: "Few people have the soul of Aria."
At the beginning of her health adventure, mother had told me: "When I die, take your sister and go to Aria, so that you can all be together."
Mother had her own way of psychologizing people and tried to be fair.
She would generously make excuses for the faults and failures in her environment, to see us united.
As far as life's struggles are concerned, mother was clearly opposed to fatalism and recourse to third parties, to self-activity. We owe it to ourselves, she said, amplifying her voice, to provide a solution to our problems and not to expect others to do it for us.
In our conversations, she immediately perceived the humour in our words and there were moments when she laughed her heart out, to the point of tears. We enjoyed it.
Over the years, when mother began to have excess free time, she started reading literature books of her own choice. Her satisfaction was great, as in their pages she discovered new and wondrous things. Except of the books in my house and the school's lending library, there were added those that were gifts, to her big delight.
A characteristic scene was that of mother often tearing up while reading, not necessarily from the plot of the content, but from the way each author found every time to express his feelings and move her.
Life gave a piece of joy to her with delay, like an old debt, after the disappointment of her youthful years, when she stopped going to school.
When our ill mother was confined to the house, I felt it was my moral duty to stand by her, as she had done for a lifetime, with us and with her own mother.
Until the time I leave this life, I will remember those big, deep, expressive and perhaps sorrowful eyes, which reflected the purity of her soul.
It is worth mentioning that during all these years of illness, music accompanied us continuously, it calmed mother, kept her alert and made her sing softly, even though the ischemic stroke had affected her speech. Mother would hum while looking at me, and I would amplify her singing with my voice discreetly, to encourage her and strengthen her mentally. But when we listened to Smyrna songs, I would notice mother weeping quietly as if they had scolded a child unfairly. I wept with her, for all the misfortunate refugees of the whole world.
During these nine years of our mother's health adventure, I kept discovering the extent of her sensitivity, the kindness, tenderness and gentleness of her pure soul, to a level that surpassed me. Virtues beyond any diploma, I thought.
This woman showed unique pride, greatness and strength, until the end. You’d think she was a figure emerging from a novel.
In the summers during those leap years for mother, our house was filled with pleasant voices. They were the great-grandchildren, children of her granddaughter - my sister's daughter - who were coming from England for holidays. Mother was always smiling and had an immense hug for everyone. Love gave oxygen and made mother happy, seeing us all around her, united.
In the last few years, which also seemed a bit contemplative, by some random association, mother used to ask me: "Antonios Venetis?". At some point I realized she wanted to hear what I had succeeded in becoming in my life. Then I would answer her, "Professor of philology." She shook her head with satisfaction. This gesture came rather as a seal of her expectations and her efforts. I asked in turn: "Evangelia Veneti?" As if startled, she glanced away whispering: "Nothing." Immediately, I said aloud to her: "Heroine, the best mum in the whole world" and kissed her repeatedly to confirm my words.
Anyway, what I have become, I owe it to her, if not only to her.
Mother and I also experienced moments of silence, sitting side by side. Behind her serene gaze, I could, in a magical way, decipher feelings that only if you truly love, you can unravel.
On February 13, 2020, at eight o'clock in the evening, my mother will lay her head down and take her last breath in my arms, in the hospital bed where she had been hospitalized for some time.
Mother was not afraid of death, except that those who are brave about death do not take into account the mourners, when and if they truly exist.
Suddenly, the world got smaller in a suffocating way. There was frost everywhere. Time stopped. Words of consolation fell on deaf ears. Mother, a folded white sheet!
Age does not count, nor is the natural course of a person's death. These are given and inevitable. But it is the absence and loss of a special and rare person that act beyond all logic.
I speak about all this today, because my conscience dictates it and because I believe that worthy people should be remembered with respect and gratitude, so that they can set an example with their attitude and their contribution.
Such an admirable person was our precious mother, who offered her life to her children and grandchildren with a smile and with patience that was exemplary, almost unbearable, without ever claiming the slightest thing for herself.
I would also like to add that in life, we should not only reflect on what we have done for our loved ones, but also take into consideration what we could not or did not have time to offer, to try harder and stronger in the future.
My mother was cremated on February 17, 2020, according to her desire.
If there is anything beyond, I would like that golden-hearted soul to come again, even as a jasmine breeze, as it did in my childhood, to sweeten the bitterness of life.
Antonios Venetis,
Professor of Philology.