Mom’s Biography: Putting her words into context

by Christianna
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Maria Eleni Conalis-Kontou’s Story

In order to understand how my mom evolved into the woman she was – in order to understand her values, her beliefs, her choices, her pain, the content of her journal-entries to me – it would be helpful if you knew her story. After all, context is key to comprehending and processing any information.

I leave room for the possibility that I lack objectivity, but my mom’s life was quite the life; daughter of a US Sergeant and of a former singer and actress, she lived all around the world, experienced diverse cultures, suffered losses, built relationships that lasted a lifetime, loved, cried and faced life’s uncertainties early on.

Before she died, she told me she had no regrets; she lived a full life, a life which she fought for until her dying breath.

The entire Conalis family

The entire Conalis family before leaving for Okinawa, in Brockton, MA. in 1962.
From the left, top: Eleni Conalis, Anne Conalis and Philip M. Conalis, bottom: Lucia and Maria

The Early Years

It all begins on March 21, 1956, in Brockton, MA, when my mom is born to Philip Michael and Anne Conalis. I guess, if I am to be accurate, it all really begins much earlier, when Philip M. Conalis and Anne Papageorgiou meet in Smyrni, Turkey. My grandfather was born on November 14, 1928 to Greek parents, who had emigrated to the United States in 1927. He was a military man, tall, with broad shoulders, he discussed Thoreau and politics with his daughters, an artist, who specialized in Batik, whose art was infused with the people he loved and the cultures he visited; a Greek and an American. My grandmother, Anne, born in 1935, in Livadia, Greece, was an artist as well, a thespian, a woman who emanated an aura of 1950s Hollywood, a woman who defied her own mother’s wishes by pursuing her passion, touring with theater troupes, singing and performing.

Philip and Anne Conalis in 1953

Philip and Anne Conalis in 1953

 

In 1953 my grandfather was on assignment in Turkey, something to do with NATO, and my grandmother was performing there with her troupe. As my Aunt Lucia tells me the story, he saw her performing and like many men before, was smitten. Everyone knew, however, that in order to get to the woman behind the curtain, you had to get past Cerberus: my grandmother’s mother, my Great Grandmother Eleni. After convincing Eleni that he was a good man, with good intentions, a widower and not a divorcee, my grandfather was permitted access to Anne. The courtship must have been successful, since on December 18, 1953, the couple gets married in Smyrna, Turkey.

 

The newlyweds leave Turkey and return to the United States, to Brockton, MA, where both my mom and my aunt are born. In 1962, duty calls, and my grandfather is sent on assignment to Okinawa, Japan, where the family stayed for five years, until 1967. Then, my mom, along with her mother and sister moved to Baltimore, MD. for the duration of my grandfather’s assignment in Vietnam. Two years later, in 1969, the entire family moved to Abadan, Iran.

Girls in traditional japanese robes, Okinawa

Maria and Lucia in Okinawa, Japan, in 1966

The Abadan Years

Karen, Maria and Lucia in Iran, in 1969

From “The Abadan Years” – the three girls, from the left: Karen, my mom and my aunt Lucia, in Abadan, Iran, in 1969

The “Abadan Years” – as I have decided to call this period – spanned between 1969 and 1974, it spanned my mom’s adolescence; events that occurred during that period, people who she met, played a pivotal role in her adult life. Most importantly, it was in Abadan that my mom met Karen and her family. The international community in Abadan was very small and the English school only went up to the 8th grade, while the classes were taught three grades at a time. It was in one of those 6th, 7th & 8th grade combo-classes that Karen and my mom met and became friends. Despite living on different continents for the majority of their lives, Karen was my mom’s best friend, maid of honor, my brother’s Godmother, my mom’s port in the storm, our family.

One year after arriving in Abadan, in 1970, my mom started 9th grade and left for boarding school in Thessaloniki, Greece, where she completed all four years of high school. During this time, the rest of the family was in Iran and my mom would travel “home” during school breaks.

The family sightseeing in Iran, 1972

The family, sightseeing in Iran, 1972

The College Years

Upon graduating from Pinewood International School in Thessaloniki, my mom’s path diverges from that of her family’s, as she returns to the United States to start college. By the time she begins the fall semester of ’74 at Mansfield State College, in Mansfield, PA, the family has already been living in Genoa, Italy for a few months. When in December ’74 my mom transfers to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in Amherst, MA, the family moves to Pusan (also known as, Busan), South Korea.

The physical distance between my mom and her family seems to be growing, perhaps an omen of what is to come, since in the spring of 1975, during a visit to Pusan, while celebrating her 19th birthday, her father suffers a severe respiratory attack. The entire family gets on a military plane headed to Walter Reed National Military Center in Washington D.C. During the flight, however, he experienced another attack that forced an emergency landing in Hawaii.

Mom celebrates her nineteenth birthday celebration in Busan (or Pusan), South Korea

Mom celebrates her nineteenth birthday celebration in Busan (or Pusan), South Korea – March 1975

My grandfather eventually was stable enough to leave Hawaii and the family arrived in Washington D.C., where my grandfather was hospitalized for a few months at Walter Reed, while the rest of the family stayed in Maryland with Karen’s family. It was at Walter Reed, in the fall of 1975, that he received a diagnosis of acute leukemia and given a life expectancy of 8 to 12 months.

I know the feeling of hearing such news, I can imagine what went through my mom’s and aunt’s heart and mind and all I can say, is that I empathize with those 19 and 17-year-olds.

Back to the Homeland

Faced with such a stark prognosis, my grandparents decide to move back to Athens, Greece, in the beginning of 1976; I’m sure they planned on retiring in Greece, so this was only a natural choice. My mom now had to balance going to university in the U.S. and continuing her life, with spending as much time with her father as possible. During summer vacation in ’76, my grandfather suffered another respiratory attack, which forced an emergency trip to Walter Reed. Only my grandmother joined him, while my mom and aunt remained in Athens. He entered Walter Reed on September 17, 1976 and died in the hospital, on December 20, 1976 – he was 48 years old.

Conalis family photo, greece 1976

Last family photo, while Philip Conalis was undergoing chemotherapy, Greece 1976

When bidding him farewell that September, neither my mom nor my aunt knew that they would never see their father again. They were unable to travel to the U.S. for his funeral, because the tickets were too expensive; Sergeant First Class Philip M. Conalis is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

My mom lost her father three months before her 21st birthday, I lost her two months before mine. Growing up, she would speak of both her parents with such longing and love, I could feel the depth of her emotions, I could see the sorrow behind the words she spoke, but couldn’t relate to it. Now I can. As I can relate to her need to fiercely and fearlessly move on, to honor her father’s memory through her own life, to fulfill her dreams just as she had planned to before his death.

So, my mom continued her studies, she even studied abroad at the University of Heidelberg in Germany for the ’77-’78 academic year and graduated cum laude from UMass Amherst in 1980 with a B.A. in Political Science. She immediately entered into a Master’s program at American University in Washington D.C., where she graduated with distinction in 1982, receiving an M.A. in International Affairs; her fields of concentration were International Law and Organization and International Relations, her areas of specialization, Foreign Policy Analysis, U.S. – Greek – Turkish – Cypriot Relations and U.N. Law of the Sea Negotiations.

Marriage and Family Years

Wedding Day

Maria and Lefteris Wedding Day – December 21, 1983

After her Master’s degree was complete, my mom returned to Athens to stay with her mother and sister, while she deliberated on her next move. Well, the deliberation was really about whether to go for her PhD immediately or work first and then go for a PhD. After assessing the situation, she concluded that the immediate route was more to her liking and she applied to American University’s doctoral program in International Relations. Little did she know, there was an unknown denominator in the equation, which had not been considered in the initial deliberations. In the summer of 1982, while at a party, she first “meets” my father; they didn’t speak at the party, my father says he quite deliberately did not speak to her. Nonetheless, it was a first encounter with her future husband and the father of her children. In April 1983 she was accepted to the doctoral program and even offered a Graduate Assistantship at American University, but on December 21, 1983, my mom and my father got married instead.

Motherhood

New born Christianna and Grandma Anna, November 1984

New born, Christianna, and Grandma Anna, November 1984

When my parents got married, my mom was not only a new wife, but also a step-mother to my brother Stefanos, who was 12 at the time of my parents wedding. Eleven months later, the greatest gift arrived, as I was born on November 14, 1984. My mother was in labor for 48 hours, I was meant to be born on November 12, but instead, as she used to say, I waited two days so that I could be born on her father’s birthday. Six months later, in May 1985, her mother, my grandmother, died of multiple intracerebral aneurisms – she was 49 years old. I was meant to be baptized “Christina,” but with the death of my grandmother, a second name was added, thus “Christina Anna,” is now, Christianna.

I didn’t grow up with any grandparents, my father’s father died before I was one-year-old, and my father’s mother was in a vegetative state from before I was born. So, in thinking about grandparents, I only had pictures of older folks who held me when I was an infant, images of other people’s grandparents, but no understanding of what it means for my parents to have parents. I was too young to truly understand what my mother had lost by the age of 28. I was so far removed from it that I couldn’t recognize that there was loss to begin with. My mom wasn’t a kid at 28, was she?

Well, today I say that you are never too old to feel pain from the loss of your parents, but maybe, if you are lucky, you are better prepared for the absence, satiated by the experiences, content with the time spent with them and at peace with their departure.

Life moved on, as it always does, and on December 21, 1986, on the anniversary of my parent’s wedding, Philip is born; the quintet is complete! Since getting married, my mom had not worked, she was a stay-at-home mom, a “housewife,” as she puts in it my journal and not the least bit happy about it. No matter how much she loved her family and how happy they made her, this was not the only person she had dreamed of being; she was battling with herself and with her choices. Life had a greater battle in store, though.

Philip's Baptism in october 1987

Philip’s Baptism in October 1987

Cancer #1 Years

In late 1989, my mom had gone to her gynecologist to inquire about a lump in her breast. He told her it was nothing. After pressure from my father, my mom went to another doctor in Athens, who quite urgently referred her to a Greek doctor at the Mayo Clinic – she had breast cancer and unfortunately, the cancer cells had passed into her lymph nodes. In the summer of 1990, at 34, my mom was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer and given a life expectancy of six months. At the time, no Greek hospital was able to offer any viable solutions, so in September 1990 my mom entered an experimental treatment program at Georgetown University Hospital and given a 5% survival rate. Philip and I joined her in December 1990. During our stay in the United States, my father remained in Athens to work and traveled every month to see us.

Building a snowman with Lynne and Karen in Silver Spring, MD

Philip and myself building a snowman with Lynne (hiding behind Frosty) and Karen, on the far right. Christmas 1990

Just like in 1975, my mom turned to Karen in her time of need and while she was undergoing treatment, we lived with Karen and her two best friends, Lynne and Imelda, in Maryland. My mom referred to the three of them as the “Three Graces,” a nickname which has been adopted by their respective extended families as well. Today, the Three Graces provide so much more than the Ancient Greek virtues after which they were named and have offered me sanctuary, whenever I needed it.

The extensive tests she went through also revealed that the small “ticks” and strange numbness that she had been experiencing since her teens were, in fact, Multiple Sclerosis. This revelation added strain to an already strained body and spirit. My mom, however, refused to give up and, as she declared to my aunt Lucia when she first heard of the diagnosis, “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere until Philip graduates high school.”

Despite the odds, my mother lived. The doctors attributed her survival, if such percentages can be estimated, to 60% to her positive attitude and 40% to the treatment itself. So, instead of dying at 35, when I was 6, Philip was 4 and Stefanos was 19, she lived an additional 15 years. For the extra time she gave us, we will all be eternally grateful.

Due to her cancer’s aggression, she would not be considered cured until the completion of 10 years of remission, as opposed to the “usual” 5-year period. Upon completion of her cancer treatment, we all returned to Greece, where my mom, affected by her battle with cancer, empowered by her victory, decided to find a way to balance work and family. What followed was a career in the field which she had spent her academic life specializing in, International Relations with a concentration on U.S. – Greece – Turkish – Cypriot relations, law of the sea negotiations and foreign policy analysis.

The Career Years

Her reentry into the workforce began at the Ministry of Education, but quickly continued onto the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she eventually became the Chief of Staff to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the now former Prime Minister of Greece, George Papandreou. During her tenure, she served as special advisor on a number of issues, including, Trans-Atlantic Affairs and US – Greek Relations and was a member of special advisory boards, such as, the Security and Anti-Terrorism Board for the Athens 2004 Olympics.

In 2002, one year after she was officially “cured,” right as I was about to leave the nest for Boston University, my mom was named a Fellow at the Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. That August, my mom, Philip and myself left for the United States, this time, headed for Boston. My mom and Philip lived in Cambridge and I lived on the other side of the Charles River, on B.U. campus, while my father remained in Athens to work and traveled every month to see us.

Harvard University's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Fellows for the 2002-2003 academic year

Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Fellows for the 2002-2003 academic year

Cancer #2 Years

We were all beginning to get acclimated to our new lives, adjusting to the new city, when everything came to a screeching halt. In December 2002, during a doctor’s visit in Greece, a tumor – the size of a potato, they said – was found in my mom’s liver. She was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. My mom completed the Harvard fellowship in 2003, as planned, and continued to work, while undergoing treatment, chemotherapy and eventually, radiation therapy. She went back and forth between Greece and the United States, for work and for treatment. In the end of 2004, she returned to Boston only for treatment, because the cancer had rapidly progressed. In the end of April 2005, that (Greek) Easter, she returned to Greece, for what would be the last five months of her life.

In September 2005, my mom succumbed to the disease that had so persistently antagonized her for the better part of both our lives. The cancer had spread to her entire body, from her liver, to her stomach, to her esophagus, all the way to her brain. She died on September 5, 2005 – she was 49 years old.

Three months prior to her death, in June 2005, my mom kept her promise and watched Philip graduate high school.

Philip's graduation

Philip’s Graduation from ACS Athens in June 2005

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