“It must be good. Everyone’s quiet.”

My mother, Sandy, always hosted all the big holidays. Christmas, Easter, New Years, and Thanksgiving for years. She’d always cook, plan, organize and share in the most humble of ways. When dinner was served, we’d all dig in, totally enjoyed a scrumptious meal and everyone would be silently enjoying the meal and that’s what she would say.

“It must be good. Everyone’s quiet.”

Born in 1943, to Jack and May, she lost her father when she was 12 years old. I can’t imagine that experience for her. She was always quiet about that. I’ve heard that when soldiers experienced war, they never wanted to speak of the trauma and I think the same was for my mother. She always tried to keep upbeat. But she experienced trauma in her life.

She would always tell the story about how after her father died, she’d begged her mother to go horseback riding. Begged and begged until her mother relented. As they rode, my grandmother, her mother, fell off her horse and broke her back. My mother said she thought her mother would never walk again and carried that guilt for years. My grandmother did, indeed, heal and walk again and soon after found a new partner. Granpa Jim.

I never really knew Jim growing up because as a young child I was hidden from the family drama. Jim was not a very nice man. He took my mother’s inheritance and when my mother wanted to go to college, he told her, “Women only go to college to find a man.” He denied her that college experience.

She went to work and got a job at McGraw Hill…a publishing company, where she met a young man from Queens named Christo…or Chris. He was, and is, Greek. They dated and fell in love. They decided to get married. Jim thought Greeks were dirty and forbid my mother from marrying my father. My mother didn’t care. She loved him and would marry him. On her wedding day, Jim threw her wedding dress out on the front lawn and said he never wanted anything to do with her again.

My mother experienced trauma.

After converting and getting married in the Greek Orthodox church, my parents originally settled in Queens in 1964. They were only 21. Their wedding date was June 6, but I learned later that they had a civil ceremony months before to help my father avoid the draft. But they were in love and they wanted a future.

When they were first married, my father told my mother that a “good Greek wife always got up in the morning and put her husband’s socks on for him so his feet wouldn’t touch a cold floor.” And, trying to be a dutiful wife, she did so for about a month until she spoke to the other Greek wives in the neighborhood told her that was absolute garbage. She told my father she wasn’t doing it anymore.

After a miscarriage they eventually had a son in 1967. Me. We lived in Queens for 10 months and then moved to New Jersey. Teaneck, to be specific. Twenty months later, they had a little girl, my sister. We didn’t have a lot. My mother became a stay-at-home mom while my father worked for American Airlines. We laughed over the years that we lived like “Little House on the Prairie” a TV show that ran in the 70s. We didn’t have much money, but because of my father’s job, we got free air travel and would see all these amazing places.

My mother valued family over all else because when I was about 10, her brother died at 38.

My mother experience trauma.

Soon after we lost her mother. So, she would always entertain family. Cousins would come over a few times a year and she loved it. She would cook and everyone would be quiet. It was that good. Nothing made her happier than having family around.

When I was about 11, I had gotten a paper route. I didn’t want it, but the kid who had it just told me it was mine now and people were counting on me. I was unsure of myself, but my father told me that I needed to do the work. The first Sunday, I had to put together all the papers and deliver them. But, it was pouring outside. I went to my mother, scared and crying. I didn’t know what to do. She helped me load the papers in her car and we went out together to deliver them, just the two of us. Bill Wither’s song, “Just the Two of Us” came on the radio and she smiled at me and said, “See? Just the two of us. We can make it work.” And we did. All the papers were delivered in spite of the rain.

My mother, despite not going to college, loved history. If you live in New Jersey, or have been there, you know that there are historical markers just about everywhere. And she loved them all. She would take us to all the big historical places from the American Revolution—the Von Steuben house to Valley Forge. She would make us stop to read every sign until one day we had to say, “Mom, that’s a men’s room sign.” She loved her history and my love of history comes from her. Without her, there are no Ordinary People Change The World books or Xavier Riddle. I dedicated Rosa Parks to her because, much like Parks, she quietly tried to change the world.

My mother loved her church. It meant the world to her. She was raised Catholic, but totally embraced the Orthodox faith. She found community and family in that space. In the Greek church, priests can marry, and it’s much more like a family friend than this distant figure. Father Joe was their pastor, their priest, and their friend. There are so many people who went to church with us that were friends, but were actually family. They would come over every once in a while. My mother would cook and everyone would be quiet.

Every New Year, they would have all their friends…their family… over to ring in the new year, including Father Joe and his wife, Valerie. My father would hold court and try to be the center of attention, but my mother? She would quietly cook and serve and enjoy the love and friendship of those around her.

Since we are just about to celebrate Christmas, I need to mention how she loved the holiday. We used to call her Sandy Claus. She would go out and find gifts for everyone with deliberate purpose. You’d open a gift and she would explain why she bought it. It was thoughtful and purposeful. “I got this red sweater because you mentioned that when you wear red, you feel safe.” She always quietly paid attention.

When I was in college, my mother decided to take classes at Bergen Community College. She worked to get her associates degree, not to find a man, but to say she accomplished something. She got that degree, but that wasn’t enough. She would keep going to school there, not to get another degree, but to learn. They had a senior program and she would take classes all the time and we would sit and talk about them. She loved learning.

My father was the master of ceremonies, my mother was the magician behind the curtain. She shaved the corners off my father’s sharp edges, she celebrated her children and grandchildren to all who would listen. She stood in the shadows and made all of us better.

And then my father got cancer.

My father decided that they would move to Arizona. He was worried that when he passed that my mother would need someone to take care of her. Luckily, the FDA approved a new pill that specifically targeted his form of cancer and it actually killed the cancer in his body. But then the other shoe dropped. We learned my mother had dementia. Alzheimer’s. She was scared, sad, and lonely. Friends would call and she would start the conversation by saying, “I have dementia.” She was embarrassed. But what she didn’t seem to get was that everyone loved her no matter what.

My mother experienced trauma.

I would call my parents up to see how they were doing. My father would complain about this this thing or that. My mother would always say everything was fine. When my father wasn’t on the phone I’d ask her how she really was and she would admit to being scared and sad and angry. Angry that she couldn’t express herself. Scared to lose who she was and sad that she wasn’t with her friends.

Last Wednesday, she passed away. It was a heart attack. She went quickly. I’ve been thinking about the impact one person can make on the world. We look at kings and presidents, artists and performers, but I always think of those who quietly support those famous people and those are our real heroes. My mother was and is my hero, and she impacted the world.

I’ve been sitting here quietly thinking of her and her life and I realized it was good.