Against all Odds

The poor and cold home in which Evaggelia was born affected her personality in the most determinant way. Her violent and alcoholic father injured her psychology in the most dramatic way and her mother, also intensively hurt from her husband, was a distant and despotic woman that never really helped her daughters feel safe and accepted.

   The smuggler father, instead of guiding his children to achieve some basics in life, he sent them to find a work immediately after their elementary school. He also forced Evaggelia to get married at the age of 17th to a man she didn’t know. Before she even turned twenty my mother had given birth to two boys. Her father’s attitude and all her childhood traumas have finally persecuted my mother’s marriage and children.

   The conservative society in which everything happened and the stupid idea that “we need always to hide our feelings so nobody knows how much hurt or poor we are” became the bases on which our home was built too. Untold thoughts, unshared feelings, and well-covered behaviours were always our ways to communicate inside our family... My father, unable by nature to share his feelings or his thoughts with his new family, easily became “the guy who endlessly works and brings the money at home”. Evaggelia spent her whole life raising her children and keeping the house clean and descent exactly as her mother taught her to.

   Like in most similar cases, her faith in God played a big role in her life. Devoted to him, she succeeded to: take care of her sick mother till she finally died at the age of 86, keep her marriage alive till today even though some time ago she admitted, “it didn’t worth all those sacrifices” and her biggest success of all, send to the outer world three very kind, very beloved, educated and compassionated like her children. Against all odds, my mother was a good mother and still is. Today at her 70s, she looks more serious and more thoughtful than ever and surprisingly she is missing her mother a lot.

All images were taken during my last visits to my family the last 5 years.