| Article Index |
|---|
| Thanks Mom! |
| Tami Lawrence |
| Charlie Clark |
| Diane Bergeron |
| All Pages |
Monthly salutes all the moms out there who through sacrifice, perseverance and love have raised their offspring to be people they can be proud of. Working single moms especially bear an extra burden, often stigmatized by society.
Here we present four single moms who defy the stereotype, juggling the demands of everyday life while making their kids their first priority.
Paula Magrini
Shared loss binds mother and son together
Since Paula Magrini was a little girl, she thought — no, she knew — she and her future husband would fall madly in love and would live happily ever after, just like her parents. Never in Paula’s storybook fantasies was she a single mother.
Paula met her dream man, Leo Magrini, in her late 20s, right on schedule. Like most couples, Paula and Leo had big plans. Paula, a former news anchor, thought she would one day cover Leo on his political campaign trail.
But life has a strange way of not always cooperating with dreams.
Just before they were married, Leo was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor. The doctor gave him three years to live. “Leo tried to talk me out of marrying him,” Paula says. “But I was in love with him. I thought I was going to make him whole again and we were going to survive this.”
After 10 years of seeking every kind of treatment possible, experimental and organic, the Magrini family — including their son, Leo — lost the battle to cancer.
Leo worked up until the day he died; he was a triathlete, who competed in races after radiation treatments; he received a law degree, writing papers between treatments at the hospital; he stayed positive, cracking jokes even when he had no hair, a huge incision and suffered seizures.
“If you had met him, you would have been like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’” Paula says. “He continues to be an inspiration to my son and me.” After Leo died, Paula moved to the one place she and her son could begin the healing process: close to her parents, Paul and Nancy Hudak, on Hilton Head Island.
“My son was a very, very sad 8-year-old who didn’t understand why his dad died,” Paula says. “At first, he wouldn’t go to church. He thought God had punished him.”
A family friend convinced Leo to serve as an alter boy at their church, and, soon, Leo began to make friends and join every sport available to him. He grew closer to his grandparents, especially his grandfather, who took him golfing and fishing.
A move that was meant to be a temporary respite quickly became permanent.
Paula threw herself into the juggling routine of work and family. She worked in marketing for some of the area’s top gated communities, including Hampton Hall, Hampton Point, Palmetto Dunes Resort and Hampton Lake. She recently started an advertising agency called Magrini Media.
“The challenge was getting from A to B gracefully,” Paula says of tackling single motherhood. “I didn’t want to come flying in the door. I tried to maintain grace. I really tried to strive to keep that smile on my face.”
Paula and her son became a team. She taught Leo how to do his laundry at 10 and how to make a “mean spaghetti sauce” at 12.
When she tried dating, Paula quickly realized Leo wasn’t ready to see another man in his mother’s life.
“I have a lot of cute stories of him waiting at the door with a hockey stick,” Paula says, laughing. “When Leo’s in college, I’ll probably devote time to another relationship.”
While most teenagers hit a rebellious streak, Paula and her son stay close by keeping the lines of communication open. Leo instinctively learned to wait patiently and without complaint when his mother was late to pick him up after school. He never misses a birthday or Mother’s Day.
“I’m a very lucky single mother,” Paula says.
It’s this kind of love and support that continues to get the Magrinis through the heart aches. Last year, Paula unexpectedly lost her beloved father, Paul Hudak, to a stroke.
“That was one time, I was close to getting angry,” Paula says. “It broke my heart, because I wanted my dad to see Leo graduate. He became our hero. For Leo, he was dad all over again.”
Death could cast a big shadow on the Magrinis, but Paula sees their life as a series of miracles — starting with her son.
Three years after she married Leo, when he was supposed to have died, Paula discovered she was six weeks pregnant. Doctors had said they wouldn’t be able to conceive due to Leo’s cancer treatments.
“There were lots of rewards along the way,” Paula says. “Just the fact we had Leo and we were willing to fight. And every time we moved to a different location, we met incredible friends. It’s hard to stay angry with that kind of support.”
Paula says she knows her husband and her father will be watching when Leo graduates from Hilton Head Preparatory this year. Leo recently received the prestigious Heritage Scholarship and is considering studying neurosurgery in honor of his father.
“Everyone asks me, ‘How could you go through with marrying Leo knowing he had cancer?’” Paula says. “I say, ‘How could I not?’”
