A Strong Smile
Written by Alecs Kakon
Photographs by Jen Fellegi
Every day of our lives we live through events that would seem to be isolated experiences of a person’s overall life story. But for most of us, and this is a big proclamation, we are a sum of our parts. Each event is an episode in our own personal television series; each experience is a product of past events, all layering one upon the other to create the people we are. Informed by our context and experiences, we are not made up of floating parts that magnetically deflect one another, instead each part is an extension of another lived experience all bouncing off each other and reflecting one another. I believe this to be the very nature of a human life. Sitting down with Christina, we talked about identity, choices, and how perspective plays a big role in how we perceive and understand the moments we live.
Christina was born and raised in Montreal. Daughter to traditional Italian parents, Christina grew up in the midst of the Jewish ghetto where being an “outsider” gave her a depth of character that carried her through everything from her elementary and high school experiences, professional life, and today, her marriage as well as motherhood. Giving her a sense of identity that allowed her to choose to stand apart or sheepishly fit in, Christina intimately experienced that we are all different, yet in the end, we are all really the same. Navigating her social life—and later on romantic life—was a balancing act between knowing who she was within her strong Catholic Italian family, and socializing with a largely monolithic community of Jewish members. Her life could’ve seen a clear path had she chosen to conform to house rules, however, being an altar girl was not the life she had in mind, and although she felt (and still feels) a strong connection to her Italian heritage, she knew very young that she didn’t have to choose one over the other, because she was destined for a hybrid identity.
Growing up breaking the rules and creating her own path, Christina chose to form her own religion so to speak, drawing from the people around her and infusing her traditional worldview with her community at large. She created a greater sense of family which includes close friends and her one and only boyfriend she’s ever known (her now-husband); together, they’ve harmonized the Italian-Jewish combo to form their family, comprised of two little girls and her baby boy.
As a child, Christina always knew that the one thing she ever wanted to be in life (aside from whatever professional goals she had) was to be a mother. Christina raises her children in a home of boundless traditional values, but most notably, her parenting is judgment-free and respectful of everyone’s beliefs. One basic tenants that guides her as a mother is to teach her kids to build a character tough enough ‘to not sweat the small stuff,’ and to be strong enough to not dwell in the negative because “if we stay positive then we can overcome anything.” That idea of staying positive is significant and the smile she wears is permanent. Although a positive frame of mind can sometimes veil the fear she has of showing any vulnerability, it is also an authentic badge of her core values: find the happiness.
Christina’s life has been pretty much “sun-kissed” (my words, not hers); “I’ve never truly been shaken,” she says. “I’m 31 and so far, the other shoe hasn’t dropped yet. It’s bound to happen soon, right?” Christina’s biggest fear is that because she has been so lucky in her life, it’s only a matter of time until she’s faced with an insurmountable challenge, a deep sadness or loss. But here’s the thing, perhaps she has been faced with challenges, and although not traumatic or painful (on a relational level), challenges they’ve been nonetheless. Perhaps Christina’s upbringing, her sense of self and no-bullshit attitude, has given her the capacity to push through life’s difficult moments. Perhaps, because she has such a happy-go-lucky outlook, these “trials” have been categorized differently, unconsciously building her strength as well as character.
It takes going through hardship to build character. I believe that to be a fact. However, I also believe that we must first define hardship. For Christina, being kicked out of her family home for taking birth control in her teenage years was a test of character; a very explicit life lesson that taught her from a young age that she was not an extension of her parents, she was her own person with her own set of values. Marrying a Jewish man was not a rebellion against her parents, but rather a testament to her truly having constructed her own identity with very firm lines drawn as to where her parents end and she begins. I derived one very clear truth from our conversation: we are all informed by our past, each of us a synecdoche of our experiences—none of which are singular or isolated—all of which collect in our memory, building character, instilling values, and creating belief systems that will guide us when we are faced with life’s challenges. So when that shoe drops, Chris, you can rest assured that you can rely on the person you are, the person you worked hard to be and become, to help you get through whatever life may throw your way.
