Rachel Galanis was home with her four children, getting them ready for an early bedtime when a fire broke out in their home.
Her husband was away playing basketball with the guys. One of her kids stayed home from school, sick with the flu. She was dreading the nightly routine of settling down all four kids without any help and she felt drained from the long December day.
“I was lying in bed with my 5-year-old when the smoke detectors went off,” she recalled. “My first feeling of annoyance crept in as I thought this noise better not wake up my baby, who I had just put down for the night.”
First she smelled smoke. Then she saw black smoke billowing from the air vents.
Her two oldest kids stared at her with fear in their eyes. With every smoke detector screaming, Galanis grabbed her sleeping baby and gathered her three other kids. Her first thought was to call her husband for help, but he wouldn’t hear his phone.
“I remember frantically looking around and thinking who’s going to protect us, who’s going to save us,” she said. “And then it dawned on me. Oh God, it’s ME!”
Galanis told this story to her new group of friends on a recent Saturday morning inside a greenhouse at Johnson’s Farm in Hobart. They met there to rehearse their lines for the show, “Listen to Your Mother!” taking place May 12, the day before Mother’s Day, at the Art Theater in Hobart.
Although the show is not strictly for mothers, the series of live readings, poetry and performances by local writers is all about motherhood from unique angles. Motherhood, of course, touches all of us in different ways.
Some of their on-stage readings are funny. Others are more confessional. A few are painfully poignant, like the house fire at Galanis’ home. I watched the group’s final rehearsal, impressed by their passion and touched by their candor.
“I was a newly divorced and frustrated single mother with four young, not so innocent but very amazing children,” recalled Lisa Winstead, executive director of the Hobart Chamber of Commerce, who’ll be performing in the show.
Her piece is titled, “Rules of Engagement.”
“Listen to your mother. I always do. But, how do I get my kids to listen to me?” she asked as other group members listened. “I would give them directions and they would not listen to me. It was as if they could not hear me. Maybe if I yelled louder, they would hear me and know that this mama meant business.”
On one warm, summer day, Winstead snuck out of her home’s back door to water the flowers and to enjoy a rare moment alone. It didn’t last long.
“Mom, she’s being mean to me!” one of her kids yelled.
“Mom, he touched me!” another one yelled.
“Mom! Mom! Mom!” she kept hearing.
Winstead lost her cool. She threw down the garden hose and yelled. “I am trying to water my flowers!”
To her shock, the hose bounced back into the air and came down with the hard, metal water pistol whacking her daughter in the head. She rushed toward her daughter to apologize and touched the back of her head. There was blood.
“What kind of a monster mother am I?” Winstead yelled, reliving that moment. “How am I going to explain this to the doctors in the emergency room?”
Another shade of motherhood. This one crimson colored, still dripping with embarrassment years later.
“The performances are guaranteed to pull at your heartstrings and take you on the emotional journey that is motherhood,” explained Carrie Bedwell, of Hobart, who’s producing and directing the show.
Bedwell performed in a “Listen to Your Mother!” show a few years ago and she wanted to bring one to Northwest Indiana. It’s been in the works for months. A portion of the proceeds will go to the American Cancer Society, she said.
“Confession – I have left the house without deodorant on and with eyeliner only on one eye. Multiple times,” said Melissa Sickinger, who works in the English department at Merrillville High School. “Once, I got to work with my slippers on, and was thankful for the flip flops that were left in the back seat.”
Her piece is titled, “Confessions of a Stressed out Mom.”
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“Confession – my boys run my household,” she told the group. “Confession – sometimes my oldest son calls me Melissa when I don’t answer his first few ‘Mom, mom, mom’ yelps from the other room. I don’t hate it. I realize I am a person, too.”
“Confession – I love when my husband calls me by my first name when our children are around instead of ‘Hey mom, do you know where the kids’ shoes are?'”
Albert Escobedo, a stand-up comedian from Crown Point, talks about his mother.
“I am the man I am today because of my tough Mexican mother. Yes, I’m Mexican, I know it’s hard to tell. I don’t have any neck tattoos, no kids, and no felonies. In my culture, I’m what’s known as ‘el unicorn,'” he joked.
Other group members shared stories about adoption, death, and how to actually get children to listen to their mothers.
“The show will make you both laugh and cry as we explore the nuances that are motherhood,” Bedwell said.
How to get tickets
Tickets for “Listen to Your Mother!” cost $15 and can be purchased at the Art Theater, the Hobart Chamber of Commerce, and Librarium Café in Hobart. Or online at https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/purchase/158?siteToken=b2q4ns7260wpk2y6trbf3jhn1r
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