Mother Magic: A Eulogy
12/1/2022, Chicago, Illinois, 8:02pm
Call me back asap.
I peeled one eye from the festive group chatter surrounding me at the bar and scanned Dad’s text message.
I dashed off a quick response.
Out with friends right now, but can call when I get home. What’s up?
My phone pinged again immediately.
Call me now.
Well, I guess that settled it!
I excused myself and headed toward the bathroom, blending into the holiday crowd as I weaved my way through a sea of red and green.
A sliver of concern blossomed in my gut, gliding up my spine beneath the fitted emerald green top that hugged it.
My uncle had recently been in the hospital several times. Was this going to be that call about him?
I hoped not.
I stepped into the ladies’ room and dialed.
Dad answered immediately. I don’t remember a single word we said to each other until he told me why he was calling.
“Mom died.”
Oh.
I’d been expecting it within the year, but not this soon. Not today.
I thought I’d be ready for that day when it came. I wasn’t.
Not even after a decade of watching Mom slowly deteriorate from early onset Alzheimer’s disease. I’d been super extra sure I’d be ready for her inevitable death, because I’d already marked so many losses over the years:
The day my sister first told me over dinner one summer 2012 evening: “Something’s wrong with Mom.”
The day I went to Mom’s house and realized she was overwhelmed trying to manage her bills and finances because they had become too confusing.
The day we cried together at the bank when we added me to her account. I’ll never forget the devastation in her eyes as that first tear slid down her cheek. She might have been confused about her bills, but her knowledge that she was losing her memory and independence was crystal clear.
The day we moved her out of her house and into an assisted living facility.
The day my sister took over driving and maintaining Mom’s car because she could no longer drive safely. That woman loved driving almost more than life itself.
The day Mom stopped recognizing us with her usual flicker of excitement when we stopped by to visit.
The day she stopped recognizing our childhood photos.
The day it became too difficult to take her out for lunch or dinner because she needed help feeding herself.
The day she could no longer keep up with conversational cues because her language skills had rapidly deteriorated.
The day she stopped being able to speak intelligible words almost altogether.
The long string of days during the pandemic when most of her remaining motor skills declined.
The days during the last year of her life when I held her hand, stroked her hair, talked to her, and cried during nearly every visit while she either spoke in her own unintelligible language or slept peacefully. She might not have consciously known I was there, but sometimes she’d squeeze my hand just a little tighter when I told her, “I love you.”
And the last day I saw her alive, on Thanksgiving Day, when I hugged her goodbye one last time.
It turns out that absolutely nothing can prepare you for the day your parent dies. And while there’s a formal ceremony to celebrate someone’s life after they’re gone, there are no official markers to grieve the losses leading up to that day.
They all resurfaced, begging to be witnessed, on 12/1/2022.
So I promised her I’d do two things: Give her eulogy at the funeral. And write about her life when I was ready.
I did the former with no preparation other than reflecting on the key points I wanted to highlight. I wrote nothing down and spoke directly from my heart.
There is no exact record of what I said that evening, but the vignettes you’re about to read are based on that eulogy, expanded with context, a year of perspective, and everything else that channeled through me as I wrote.
I can’t think of a more fitting tribute to the insanely talented writer I called Mom.
Spring 1993, Gurnee, Illinois
* Names changed for privacy
“I think I’ll take Jillian* to McDonald’s for lunch this week,” Mom said, as we waited for the light to turn green at the intersection of Route 41 & Delany Road.
I eyed the dashboard clock that maddeningly read almost 5:00 pm. Far later than what my teenage mind deemed an appropriate hour to still be wearing my plaid Catholic school uniform skirt. We were on our way home. Finally.
“That sounds fun!” I replied, shifting my attention away from fantasies of comfy jeans and onto Mom.
And I meant it. Mom was always trying to make sure Jillian had some loving care, fun, and nourishment in her life before she went home from school every night, too far away for my Mom to watch out for her.
At 14, Jillian and I were the same age, but her life couldn’t have been more opposite from mine. I didn’t know all the specifics, but her home life was functionally and financially unstable, she didn’t have healthy adult role models other than teachers like my mom, and she had her first child before we graduated from high school.
Mom took Jillian under her wing and treated her like a daughter.
Although she was technically a speech pathologist for the Gurnee, Illinois school district, Mom’s job had evolved from treating old school speech articulation issues when I was born to almost exclusively supporting kids with learning disabilities, ADHD, autism, or English as their second language by the time she retired.
Like many teachers, her teaching often doubled as social work, and she warmly accepted the challenge by supporting kids who were underprivileged like Jillian or neurodivergent like Mike*.
Mike had Aspberger’s. During summers while I was in junior high, Mom welcomed him into our house for therapy. Every week, they did speech exercises at our kitchen table while his mom and I flipped through her glossy Avon catalogs and did makeovers together.
Mom always thought of her students, even when they weren’t around.
One evening before dinner, she asked me to hand her a Ziploc bag from the kitchen cabinet, then paused, grinned, and said, “One of my LD (learning disabled) kids calls them zip code bags. I love that!”
We giggled together as I handed her a 60083 bag.
And that was Mom. She did her best to give the kids around her everything she could to make their lives easier, and she absolutely thrived while doing it.
It always made perfect sense to me that she switched her art major early on at Northern Illinois University to become a teacher.
While she sometimes hesitated when it came to speaking up for herself, she went out of her way to ensure the children around her could speak clearly. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
Her life purpose was to leave a legacy of empowerment behind for the children she supported.
And of course she brought that energy into her daughters’ lives.
Mom had her hands full taking care of my grandparents the year I was in 6th grade, but she still found time to color coordinate with her daughters for that year’s family photos.
1989-1990 School Year, Wadsworth, IL
Mom set one clear intention for my sister and me: The two of us would have each other so we wouldn’t be alone.
Born in 1948, she was an only child of two parents who had entered the world a mere twenty years after the Victorian era ended. She hated not having siblings.
Adults from my grandparents’ generation often expected children to be seen, not heard. Despite my grandparents’ deep love for her, Mom was no exception to that rule.
They didn’t quite know how to introduce the elements of fun and play into her life. The unspoken expectation in their pristinely decorated mid-century household, while mellowed by the time I was old enough to notice it, was heavier than stale cigar smoke: We’re all refined adults here. Let’s act like it.
And so Mom was the sole, parentified adult child left to take care of my grandparents when their decline began.
It started when Grandpa Al had a heart attack that landed in him the hospital for most of the year I was in sixth grade.
The day of his heart attack, she was gone for 12 hours, which seemed like an eternity in my 11-year-old mind.
Grandma Vivian didn’t drive, so it fell on Mom to take her to hospital visits and everywhere else she needed to go. By the time Mom finished a full day of school, visited Grandpa, and ran Grandma’s errands, she usually came home late and exhausted.
And she still had a husband, two grade school-age daughters, a household, a full student caseload, and her parents’ bills to manage since Grandpa had always taken care of their finances.
Many of her usual tasks fell to my dad that year.
He showed me how to make a sandwich “gourmet” by introducing lettuce and mustard to my picky preteen palate. A bold move Mom hadn’t dared try with me yet.
I taught him how to help me with the curling iron until the back spots I couldn’t style by myself resembled Mom’s precise handiwork.
And it was easy to charm him into allowing a few extra fun snacks beyond our usual Mom-approved threshold to “accidentally” fall into the cart when we went grocery shopping.
We had fun. But I know it troubled and drained Mom to feel so spread thin, even though she was doing a killer juggling job. She had no choice.
She said it outright to me one day years later after distributing her new power of attorney papers to split financial and health care responsibilities between us: “I don’t want you girls to have to go through what I did alone in my life. I wanted you to have each other.”
And that’s why there were two of us.
While our relationship looks different from what my mother envisioned for us because we are as drastically opposite as two sisters can be, I deeply love and appreciate my sister.
In our differences, Mom gifted us the ability to grow and transcend into better versions of ourselves.
Even our deepest differences find balance in the moments where we catch eyes and exchange thoughts wordlessly in that way only two sisters can do.
Including whenever Mom or Dad were being too…Mom or Dad about something. For those of you with siblings, I’m giving you the same look right now because you all know exactly what I’m talking about.
Thanks, Mom. You knew exactly what you were doing when you created and put us together.
Mom with Grandpa Al during the 60s when her last name was still Tompoles
1988, Wadsworth, IL
“I wish I had a cooler name. Laura is so boring. Why can’t it be fancier?” I huffed one afternoon, indignant 10-year-old style.
Mom stopped doing her crossword puzzle, put her pen down on the kitchen counter, and looked at me.
“No. I wanted you girls to have easy to pronounce names that people would take seriously. Laura is a beautiful name.”
It would be 7 more years before Alicia Silverstone’s iconic “whatever” quote from Clueless saturated pop culture, but I assure you Cher Horowitz would have been proud of my eye roll radius as I grumbled something salty under my breath.
But Mom knew all about fancy name drama.
Her maiden name, Marcia Ann Tompoles, confused everyone.
Everyone today thinks of Marcia Brady when they hear the name Marcia…but Mom was born in 1948. The Brady Bunch didn’t air until 1969. You do the math.
Instead, people thought her name looked like Garcia and pronounced her name as “Mar-see-a,” which she regularly informed telemarketers was not correct.
Now let’s talk about her last name.
My Greek great-grandfather decided to mix things up when his family arrived to the US. Half of their children would retain the correct Greek spelling of their last name, Tompolis, and be raised Greek Orthodox.
The other half, including Grandpa Al, changed their last name to an Americanized Tompoles and converted to Western Christianity.
The result? People thought their last name was someone’s full name, as in…Mr. Tom Poles. It irritated Mom to no end.
Well, except for that one time when she moved into a Waukegan apartment right next door to my dad’s in the early 70s.
Dad saw Mom’s last name on the door and, of course, assumed some guy named Tom Poles was his new neighbor…until he saw her for the first time.
He immediately offered to help her move in, one thing led to another, and they began dating.
Of course, marrying my dad meant marrying a Zegar, which comes with its own nomenclature challenges…
Mom and Dad, shortly before she became a Zegar
Every Zegar has stories about the creative ways people mispronounce our last name. Some of y’all get fancy!
(PSA: Zegar is super easy to pronounce. It sounds like the letter “Z” with a “gar” at the end that rhymes with “car”: ZEE-GAR)
Now imagine people constantly pronouncing my mom’s name as Mar-see-a Zay-glar, and you understand her desire to make life a little easier for us.
And that’s the story of how Laura and Kathryn became her daughters.
For the record, I love my name now. It grew on me as I grew up until one day, I couldn’t imagine being named anything else.
Thanks, Mom. It turns out people do take people named Laura seriously.
Oh, and remember that time Dad overheard me introduce myself as Crystal to a woman at the Wisconsin State Fair when I was 5? Don’t worry. I sent her some “love your name” vibes.
Our usual Saturday swimming at the Gurnee Park District beach, 1986
The mid-to-late 1980s, Glen Flora Country Club, Waukegan, IL & Gurnee Park District, Gurnee, IL
I hoisted myself from the deep end of the pool after what seemed like hours in the water, toweled off, and stretched out on a lounge chair into a position designed to absorb maximum sunshine.
“You should put on more sunscreen,” Mom sensibly advised me, handing me a big brown bottle of Coppertone.
I absentmindedly slathered on more lotion around my pink and black polka dot swimsuit as she asked me about that day’s swimming lessons, then repeated a story I knew by heart.
“They had to fish me out from the deep end of the pool when I tried to take swimming lessons in college. I’m glad that won’t ever happen to you.”
Mom couldn’t swim, despite her best efforts to learn how. Deep water had proved itself too scary for her, even in a safe environment like swimming lessons.
She didn’t mind the shallow end of the pool or riding in my dad’s boat. She just didn’t want to be in the water where she could drown.
But she didn’t want that us to feel like that. And she wanted to make sure we could swim with my dad.
So we took swimming lessons, first at the Gurnee Park District, then at Glen Flora Country Club in Waukegan when we became members. Impossibly sunny morning swim class became a ritual I looked forward to, followed by extended afternoons alternating between more swimming, sunning, and snacks at the clubhouse.
On weekends or days when Dad’s workload was light or his networking golf game ended early, he joined us, and we did exactly what Mom always envisioned: We swam together for hours while Mom read suspense novels and kept an eye on us from her perch on land.
While this is a simpler story, the gift she gave us is just as profound as the others I’ve written about. To this day, water and sunshine bring me nothing but happy memories and grounding whenever I have a chance to enjoy them.
At a deeper level, she gave us safety and security that water could never take away from us. Almost like a second baptism.
Thanks, Mom. I’ll always think of you when I’m near water, on the shores of Lake Michigan or the Pacific Ocean. I wish we could all meet for a family afternoon at the Glen Flora pool, just like the good old days.
Those were the three gifts from Mom I shared during the eulogy, but she gave me a fourth one that is even more special to me:
Her magic.
Mom was a double Scorpio (sun and moon) born on November 1, traditionally known as All Saints’ Day.
As in, mere hours after the veil between the physical and spiritual world is thinnest on Halloween.
Because of her birthday, kids used to ask her one simple, direct question when she was growing up: “Are you a witch?”
They weren’t wrong. That woman had more untapped, subconscious magic than she knew what to do with.
My favorite story? The dreams she had during her pregnancies. Both times she was pregnant, my parents chose to wait until our birth to learn if we girls or boys so they could be surprised.
Before I was born, Mom dreamed she was at the hospital after giving birth.
“Congratulations on your new son!” her doctor exclaimed.
“No,” she replied. “It’s a girl.”
Sure enough, I was born.
Then the dream happened again during her second pregnancy – with a twist.
“Congratulations on your new son!” her doctor exclaimed.
“No,” she replied. “It’s a girl, and it’s not time yet.”
You guessed it. My sister was born a month early while we were on vacation in the Northwoods area of Wisconsin.
And, in yet another twist, the doctor who had moved from Illinois after delivering me ended up delivering my sister because he had relocated there and happened to be on call at the hospital that night.
Mom sure knew how to manifest.
And she passed her predictive dreaming on to me. The first time it happened to me, I went on vacation when I was 24 and had a random dream that my boss and boss were promoted.
I came back to the office a week later to learn that they had indeed been promoted in an company-wide surprise.
Thanks, Mom. Now I get intuitive messages, dreams, and signs all the time. I love it when you and our ancestors send me exactly what I need to know at exactly the right time.
It’s about time one of us used magic to her full capacity.
Mom’s senior photo from high school
I’ll leave you with one more story.
After Mom’s death, the task fell to me to choose her burial clothing, so I went to Kohl’s to get a few things she needed.
Kohl’s happened to be the most convenient store that day, but that wasn’t an accident, either. It was Mom’s favorite store, and she loved getting a deal there. When I first assumed responsibility of her mail and finances, I used to tease her that Kohl’s sent her more mail than all their other customers combined.
At the register, the cashier asked me if I had a Kohl’s card so I could get the current cardholder discount. No, I confirmed.
Did I want to join their rewards program? Again, I declined.
“Well, I’m just going to give you a discount, anyway,” the cashier said.
I thanked her and chuckled to myself. That discount came straight from Mom.
Mom didn’t know it, but she was one layer away from learning how to crack the code to her magic. The magic that centuries of her maternal ancestors had learned to suppress.
But she left just enough pieces for me to put the rest of the puzzle together.
12 years ago, I turned to the healing world when ordinary life stopped giving me what I needed to evolve in life. Becoming a healer has given me the medicine I needed to break the generational trauma that kept me from embracing my true life path.
And because I am now on that path, I inject magic into my life every day to change my thoughts, beliefs, and patterns so I can continue to reroute my life to my highest purpose.
I work on reprogramming and strengthening my subconscious mind every day, because if Mom could be that powerful unintentionally, how powerful can I be intentionally?
I think about that every day.
Thank you, Mom. Thank you for empowering me, just as you came on this earth to do.
Thank you, on behalf of all the kids you supported over the years, for treating all of them like they were your own children. It made a difference.
Thank you for loving me by giving me the exact medicine I needed every day of my life with you, intentionally or unintentionally.
Thank you for being you. I know we’ll find each other again in our next lives together, and I can’t wait to see you there. And yet I can, because this life is about to pop for me, and I can’t wait to see where it takes me next.
Thank you for supporting me and coming through for me energetically every time I needed you during the last decade of your life, even and especially on days when you were no longer conscious.
Thank you for passing down your creative spirit and writing ability. Learning how to tap all the way into both has literally saved my life.
Thank you for choosing Dad to be my father so he could pass down the Zegar vitality and zest we needed to heal our ancestral shadows. Doctors have told him he will probably live to be 100, and I’m grateful he’ll stay on this earth with me for a long time.
Thank you, Mom. I’m sure you’ll stop by in a dream soon enough – or next time I need a Kohl’s discount.
I love you.
Laura
