Pocketful of Mojo
Pocketful of Mojo
Do Your Taxes. Chew Your Food. Trust Yourself.
Some voices never truly leave us. They echo in our minds, guiding our decisions and comforting us long after the physical presence is gone. My mother Constance's voice is that eternal presence for me, and her sayings have become the foundation of who I am today.
From her playful "shuffle off to Buffalo" when heading to bed to her profound "this too shall pass" during life's storms, Mom's words created the soundtrack of my childhood. She practiced mindfulness with "just breathe" long before wellness gurus made it trendy. Her wisdom about faith—"God isn't out there, it's in you"—shaped my spiritual journey and self-trust. Even her practical reminders to "do your taxes" and "chew your food" taught me that presence matters in the mundane moments.
When she passed away in 2021, I faced not just grief but an enormous space where her voice used to be. Yet in that space, I found something unexpected: courage. The courage to end my failing marriage, to rebuild my life, and to recognize that her greatest gift wasn't dependency but the strength to forge my own path while carrying her wisdom forward. The challenge isn't forgetting our loved ones—it's continuing to grow while honoring how they shaped us. Mom's voice becomes part of my inner dialogue, guiding me through challenges and celebrations alike. What saying from someone you've lost still guides you today? Share your story and let's celebrate how we carry forward those we love through their words that live on in us.
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you know how certain voices stay with you long after they're gone. Today, I want to talk about her voice, my mom, the things she said sometimes wise, sometimes funny, sometimes infuriating that are woven into who I am, and I want to talk about what it's been like to carry those words into the world without her. Thank you for joining me on this very special episode of Pocketful of Mojo. I'm Steph, your Mojo Maven, and I'm here not just to share my iconic mother's wisdom, but to help you weave these golden nuggets into your own self-love journey. So, without further ado, let's get into it and get tuned in, tapped in and turned on. Hello, my friend, how's your mojo? Thanks for being here.
Speaker 1:I've shared a lot over the last 50, some odd episodes, so I think it's time I introduce you to my mom, constance Ah, constance, my mom, mother to me and my two older brothers, and Connie or Mrs Mitchell, to countless neighborhood kids who you know they knew where the good sandwiches and popsicles lived. So the headline here is my mom passed away in 2021. And honestly, even now it feels strange to say out loud, even stranger to say it out loud without crying. But every once in a while, I catch myself in this realization that it still feels unreal that she's gone it like takes me back by surprise. But what's been really beautiful is realizing how much of her is still with me, and especially in the little things that she always said and in a way her voice kind of still lives in my head. So this episode feels like a little bit of a love letter to her and to the voice that helped me find my own. So I grew up with this soundtrack.
Speaker 1:So in addition to nonstop CBC classical music radio, my mom's sayings were pretty much on repeat. She had a good little stack by the time I came around. And I mean you know the kind, those go-to phrases that in one moment can make you groan with cringe and in another feel like a warm blanket, and Constance had a lot of them. From nothing beats a Coke and pizza. Every single time we ate pizza to just her saying, oh, I'm just going to go shuffle off to Buffalo, which was her version of saying I'm going to bed. Or when the kids were around she'd say see you in the funny papers instead of just a simple goodbye. She was always quick with a quip and left you with a smile. Or when there was a toast, like whenever we got together to raise a glass, she would insist on the toast to wonderful people there are so few of us. Clearly, her tongue-in-cheek way of not only throwing shade the craziness of other people sometimes, but truly with the intention to like elevate the company that she kept. She was cheeky and adorable, and that was my mom.
Speaker 1:But despite her inclination to ham it up sometimes and she knew how to ham there were some of her sayings that I later learned were pretty powerful. So to name a few and if I could just name one it would be this too shall pass. I'm sure you've heard me say it before too. It's the ultimate grounding statement. Now, I know she didn't invent this one duh, but it was a regular go-to phrase when times were tough and a reminder that every storm is temporary. And, looking back, she was probably saying it to herself as much as she was anyone who would listen, and I didn't always believe her, but I've heard it enough.
Speaker 1:Now in my hardest moments it just shows up on its own, and Constance was a woman of service and this is going to sound really simple, but she would always calm any situation with just breathe, like this was breathwork before it was trendy. My mom was teaching nervous system regulation before we even had that language. And my mom grew up on a farm and she was a house mom and she had no medical training. She didn't have any, you know, she wasn't reading clinical studies. But I would remember sitting down after crying or after something had happened and before she got to the what happened, or jumping to the calm down what's wrong, she would just sit with me and gently rub my back and mirror the deep breaths and just whisper, just breathe, until I was grounded and regulated. Fucking trailblazer, this woman.
Speaker 1:Then there was the soundbite of a true matriarch. No one ever listens and this one always made me smile and it was like part frustration, part surrender, part humor, but weirdly it made me listen harder. I think the people pleaser in me wanted to be the one who could say like but I listen to you Now, like as a woman of a certain age. Now I can absolutely empathize with that nauseating frustration that just want to bang your head against the wall of after being overlooked and ignored and spoken over and mansplained to, and so on and so on. You know the song. And then there was the practical Do your taxes. The only thing that's for sure is death and taxes. No-transcript. But that phrase the only thing that's for sure is death and taxes. She would throw that at us when we were playing the what-if game, which quickly becomes the worst-case scenario game, and she knew that that wasn't valuable, so she just brought it down to brass tacks and chew your food Real simple which was often followed by your stomach doesn't have teeth. But what she was really saying was the smallest things matter Slow down, be present.
Speaker 1:And mom was a woman of deep faith. It was very quiet and it was very personal, but she was raising three children, and so we all grew up going to Catholic mass. But she always made sure to clarify that God isn't the man at the front of the room, he's in you and your connection to him shows up in everything you do outside of this building. It's not about one hour every Sunday, it's about your relationship with him every day, everywhere. This one, this one, shaped everything. It shaped my sense of faith. This one, this one, shaped everything. It shaped my sense of faith of institutions, of inner wisdom, of feminism. And for the sake of time, we'll just size step the whole gender application of god or source, and we'll maybe save that for another episode, but the bottom line on this one was she just really instilled the value that there's a difference between faith and religion, and that God put a brain in my head for a reason God sourced the divine. This is what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:So these phrases weren't just words. They were seeds Seeds that grew into the values that I live by today Resilience, presence, responsibility, self-trust. Now I always say that my life changed for the better. Once I realized that my mom was always right and don't get it twisted. This came after many years of resisting this fact, but the truth is that for me she had all the answers and when she didn't, she had the best questions. And from this foundation that she laid we built this priceless connection that I don't take for granted for one second. And as I grew up, she was always in my corner, always there to listen, doing the best she could to rescue, support, cheerlead or just bring me some odds and sods, as she would say Another one of her great sayings. She would bring random newspaper articles or magazines with one little picture in it that she thought was cute or something she found at the thrift store that made her think of me. And over time, once I surrendered to this idea that my mom was always right. We had this like mother-daughter bestie combo that made me feel invincible and fearless and brave.
Speaker 1:Now, the asterisk on this is that I know that I'm so lucky. Not everybody has this relationship with a parent. So I share this with you, knowing my privilege that I had Constance as my mother, and I want to share this so that her love and her wisdom can help more than just me. And, as always, take what serves you and leave the rest. This is all made with love, because what makes this all mojo is that I want to talk a little bit about the challenge of becoming me after losing her, because losing my mom didn't just create grief. It created this enormous space and space where her voice used to be. Space to ask who am I without her? Space to separate what she gave me from what I want to keep, from what I want to grow into on my own. And there's this strange tension in grief. There's honoring her influence while still becoming fully myself. And of course, I still want to call her for advice and of course I hear her in my head and I realize, okay, I already know what she'd say.
Speaker 1:But it wasn't always like that, because the day she passed was both the hardest and the most surreal day of my life and she hated that word actually surreal she thought it should be reserved for people who were speaking about childbirth exclusively. And my mom was an avid reader and she's the one who gave me my love of crosswords and we're all very big word nerds, so we understand the power of words and that words matter. So, yeah, she died. It was surreal and despite her hate of that word, as I was processing losing her, I could hear her voice in my head, Just breathe, and somehow I did, because that day that I found out that she died, I felt like I'd been hit by a truck. And the last time I'd physically seen my mom was after a three week dream vacation where she came to France and we paraded around Paris and Nantes and Lourdes and taking her to places that literally made her say things like I feel like I'm in a movie and the cutest response to a French waiter ever told merci very much.
Speaker 1:And then, between COVID and life, two years had passed since I had the privilege of getting a hug from my mom and I mean we talked all the time and she didn't know how to have a conversation shorter than 90 minutes. So there was always a closeness, text messages riddled with emojis and rantings about what the cat did, or the thing my dad said, or some insights on a book that she was reading. We shared everything the highs, the lows, the oodles of the mundane. She was here for it. She was here for all of it until that day.
Speaker 1:So that day in question, her last day on earth, went like any other, but with a little sparkle of special. She had a long overdue coffee date with one of her longtime friends. Actually, she's the mother of one of my longtime friends, so they'd been close for decades. But as things go, it had been a while since they chatted and later I found out that her friend almost cancelled because she had to come from the gym and she wasn't feeling up to it. But she fought the urge to reschedule and showed up to see my mom, and thank god she did. And there was my mom in her cute little sundress and hat and adorned with, like one of her, many, many gaudy brooches and some sparkly earrings. And because for her this was like a big day out, because socializing was still kind of rare and sparse, and so they met and they chatted and they laughed and they caught up like old friends do.
Speaker 1:Then my mom ran some errands and came home and made meatloaf and probably finished the crossword in a whiskey while the oven was cooking up the feast. Then after dinner she was feeling tired, as one does, so she went upstairs to take a nap and the next day I was woken up by the sound of my phone ringing earlier than it normally does, and, even more rare, it was a call from my brother. Good morning, steph. Sorry to wake you up, but I have the awful job of telling you that mom passed away and what he said after that I couldn't tell you. So I sat up in bed, paralyzed, unable to think, like picture a rainbow pinwheel in my head that was stuck and couldn't fully process what he had just said. And then I think, I physically felt my heart crack open and I just started to bawl that kind of crying that just kind of takes your breath away.
Speaker 1:So a coffee and several cigarettes later, I called on my tribe to just come and be with me and I had no idea what I needed. I had no idea what to do next. I had no answers and I had only questions. So my brain kicked into problem-solving mode and I started to search for a flight home. And I got to tell work, I can't work. How am I going to get to Canada? Do I have enough money to book a last-minute flight? Jesus, how much is this going to cost? What am I going to wear to the funeral? And I spun, and I spun and I cried and I spun.
Speaker 1:I started mastering the thousand-yard stare because when I got the news, it's like the world tilted sideways. Everything familiar suddenly felt foreign and the air got heavy and my body moved. But it didn't feel like I was the one moving it, like it was more than sadness, it was disbelief and confusion and an ache so deep you can't name it, and life is just split in two, like now. We're at this landmark moment of before, this moment and everything that'll come after. And I wanted more than anything is one more chance to hear her voice.
Speaker 1:But instead I was a walking zombie, catching myself every few moments like laughing at this disbelief of this new truth that I was living in a world without my mom, who okayed this. Not only had I never known a world without her, but I'd never really thought about it. You know what? That's actually not entirely true, as I said that I just got this flash and it's gonna sound odd, but in some of my happiest moments like there's this one in particular that I can still picture today I was in my car and I was having this super powerful moment of gratitude where tears were streaming down my face. I'd been moved by a piece of music and I thought about how grateful I was that she instilled that love of music in me, that music could reach me on an emotional level. So I'm there in my car and the tears are streaming down my face, this time in happiness and joy, and I had the thought I remember having the thought that I would be able to speak to all of this love and joy and gratitude that she's gifted me with to her and for her at our funeral. I had that thought like 10 years before she died and I can say today that I did both.
Speaker 1:And coming home for her funeral was otherworldly. I was somewhere I didn't want to be dealing in an unimaginable truth, surrounded by other zombies like my brothers and my dad, and we were all trying to figure out what to do and how best to do it and how to honor her, the central figure in our lives. And it was pretty acute because she was pretty iconic and powerful and brave and just this unsung hero and we all knew it. So it's no small feat to feel like you're getting everything just right, and then it's followed quickly by the haunting reality that she won't be here to appreciate any of it. And coming out of that kind of grief took a long time, because that grief was then compounded a little by the realization that my marriage was over. So after the funeral I flew back to France and I packed up my life and I left my friends and my cats and my husband behind. And I flew back to France and I packed up my life and I left my friends and my cats and my husband behind and I moved back to Canada, to the house I grew up in and helped my dad figure out his next chapter without her, as well as sort out my own life story.
Speaker 1:But then something funny happened not like haha, funny, but there was a shift, because I'd been grappling with my failing marriage for a while and after my mom died, amidst the crippling sadness and sense of loss, I also somehow felt more empowered than ever to do what was right for me. I got this new relationship to time and how much things can change in an instant, and I tuned into what my mom must have been feeling all those times she heard me broken and sad on the phone when we were processing my disintegrating relationship over a long distance call or a long scrolling text message. I felt like I was finally strong enough to stand up for myself and make the most difficult decision at the most difficult time in my life, which is kind of how I knew it was the right thing to do, because it was terrifying and because I couldn't spend another moment feeling this way. Because, through all the noise and the chaos of grieving my mother's loss, somehow leaving my marriage didn't feel like another loss, it felt right, it felt brave, it felt like for the first time in my life I could see that life is too short to tolerate and compromise and sell myself short and make myself small.
Speaker 1:And my mom put up with a lot in her life leaving her country roots to move to the big city, navigating life with three young kids and an absent husband was no cakewalk the isolation of being a housewife in a time when women were storming the workforce and she was made to feel less than by society, not to mention her friend group. She fought many silent battles and after a couple arrived, maybe they weren't so silent, but to see me living small would never have been something that she would accept, and nor should I. It was like she passed on the courage she never had and gifted it to me in the moment that I needed it the most. That's the only way I think I can explain it, but trust me when I say that she is part of all of my big decisions and some of the small ones. But in the time since her passing I've been able to really understand the foundation that she laid for me, and it was indeed to build my own path, to grow my own seeds and chase my own dreams. So here's what I carry forward, because I know she's still with me, because her voice still shows up in moments of overwhelm, with this too shall pass.
Speaker 1:In moments of decision, god isn't out there. It's in me. In moments of stress, just breathe. In moments of everyday life, do your taxes, chew your food, and the older I get, the more I realize she wasn't perfect. Neither am I, but the love, the lessons, the words. They are perfect in the way that they continue to guide me.
Speaker 1:So if you've lost someone that you love maybe you know this feeling too their voice becomes part of your inner dialogue. The challenge isn't to forget them, it's to keep growing while still carrying them with you. So today I'm grateful for the things my mom said and I'm grateful that even now, especially now, I still hear her. And just like that, you've got your very own pocketful emoji. And listen, we've all got those mom-isms, grandma-isms, life-isms rattling around our head. So if you've got a line that's stuck with you, the kind you find yourself repeating even though you swore you wouldn't, I want to hear about it. Send me a DM, tag me, send a carrier pigeon. Let's celebrate the beautiful, funny, totally human way that we carry the people that we love forward with us. So until next time, my friend, just breathe, chew your food and, for the love of all things holy, do your taxes. You can do it, I can help. Ciao for now. Love you. Outro Music you.
