My mother, Jane Magro, or known in Malta as Giovanna, was born in the aftermath of the Second World War.
Her father was a Maltese officer who worked for the British military and mother who was from a large family in Zejtun, Malta. Her father built the house they grew up in in and my mother eventually immigrated to Canada in the 1960s, the first of her family and eventually met my Maltese father in Toronto, Canada in a local coffee shop.
My mother was always very private. She refused to tell me stories of what her life was like before me. Maybe it was a sense of protection, a inability to express them or just a refusal to explain for her youthful antics.
When her father passed away in 1993 followed by her brother in 2001,mother and husband in 2011 life changed. She began to loose focus and the stable family environment my parents had created began to crumble away.
She worked all her life in jobs such as a waitress and store manager. For most of my childhood I remember eagerly waiting for my mom to come home from her waitress job at the hotel with leftovers or travelling with the family to Malta, United States, Mexico, etc…
She was always confident, opinionated, funny and stubborn but had this inherent fear of risk. This fear eventually molded into regret has her inability to make decisions ate her up inside.
As the wicked disease known as Dementia slowly crept up on her the annoying aspects of her personality were exemplified causing much stress to family members, friends and loved ones.
I always find my mother’s story tragic. She worked all her life to eventually retire with her family but ends up a prisoner of her mind.
So I dedicate the Forgotten Landscapes project to my mother who helped me buy my first camera for Wanted Media and made me learn a valuable lesson in life to not have regret, live in the present and to take risk as life truly is short.
Mark M.
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