Hi, I'm Velia Conelli and this is 'Isso Não É Uma Sessão de Análise', a podcast created by me and Trovão Mídia. Every week I hear stories about families, but also about the range of references we build throughout life. They are the stories of the people who raised us, the conversations that marked us and that we pass on.
My guest today is the businesswoman Luiza Trajano, daughter of Clarismundo and Jacira, mother of Ana, Frederico, and Luciana, wife of Erasmo, and grandmother of Rafaela, Henrico, Pedro, Antoane, Maia, and Benjamim.
Welcome, Luiza.
It's a pleasure to have you here.
It's a pleasure to be with you. And for you to have found a time in your schedule for me is an honor.
I'm going to start with a question I always ask, which is: what is your family reference?
Well, Vera, I didn't have just one mother. My family on my mother's side had four sisters and four brothers, but the sisters were very close. One only had one child, which is me, another only had one, and Aunt Luiza had none. So, it was a very close family nucleus. Of course, my mother was a reference, but my aunt, since my mother died very young, was also a huge reference for me. I'm named Luiza because of her.
So, I have a very large and good basic family nucleus, because I was also lucky to be born into a family that will soon be 70 years old. The person who founded the magazine was a woman, my aunt. So I was raised completely differently from my friends of my era. When I decided to get married, I didn't have a single piece of a trousseau. That was 50 years ago, when a daughter was born, that didn't exist, right?
I remember that on my wedding day, my mother said: 'If you don't want to get married, don't.' So, I was raised much more to work than for anything else of that time. So, I have a lot of difference, and within those four, they were all very hardworking and entrepreneurial, but it was really my mother and my aunt who were very passionate about me. They were two very different profiles.
My mother was much more emotionally intelligent, and my aunt was much more business intelligent. Not that they weren't all, but I'm talking more about talent, right? So, I was also raised with very strong emotional intelligence, of not having guilt. Later we'll talk a little about mother's guilt.
So when I had my first child, what did my mother say? My aunt was like, 'There's no crisis, let's go, work and it will work out.' So, she didn't have much emotional intelligence at all, because she succeeded, she was a salesperson and fought, and she thought everyone was like her. So, I had to argue a lot for her to understand that processes weren't like she was, that she was very demanding, very competent because she came from a very simple life and managed everything. A person who only had four years of primary school but wrote beautifully.
And she started very early. I already lived in a simple family, I studied in a private school, but the four lived in a much simpler family and had to start working early, couldn't study so early, but they were all very well-formed by life, by experience. My aunt started working in a very large store very early, and she worked there for 16 years. So both were a very strong reference for me. I'm from Franca, right? I should mention that.
And back then in those cities, there were no shopping malls, but there was a store that sold everything. Construction materials, fabric, a lot of silver, a lot of crystal. And she started as a salesperson in the department that sold silver, crystal, those things. She started as a salesperson, kept growing, and became the manager of that department.
And she was very loved by the community. She really valued the person who gave her a job. Usually, it was the wealthiest people in the city who had that, even banks.
I got curious because of this choice of your name being your aunt's name, because usually a daughter's name is chosen from a grandmother, a mother-in-law, a sister. What was that relationship like?
No, no. First, my mother was the first to die, they were self-sufficient among the four. I mean, they had friends, but one became a widow very early and went to live with Aunt Luiza, who still lived with my grandmother. My mother lived on the 13th floor and my other aunt on the fifth. So, they formed a very strong group.
But you know, my name is a very interesting name. I say I was predestined for this. My mother had three children. At the time, there were no C-sections. And C-sections were a horror. One of my aunts, at 19, couldn't have a normal birth. They did a C-section and removed all her organs without telling her. She had trauma her whole life because of it. My mother had two more daughters, one before me and one after me. But like me, she didn't go into labor.
She didn't go into labor, they had to induce it. They were born dead. I was the only one who survived. Before and after me. So, she had a bit of trauma from childbirth. I also never went into labor. My first child, at a time when there was no ultrasound, he's turning 50 this year, he was born post-term, because I really wanted a normal birth. He was supposed to be born on March 5th, he was born on the 25th.
So he was born post-term, long, big, but it was harder for him to gain weight. Then with the others, I already knew I would have the same symptom as my aunts, my mother, that it wouldn't happen. My father went to the registry office to put my name as Sonia. My aunt arrived at the registry office because I was the first, the first of the four to be born, right?
So there were four mothers, and she said, 'Ah, you're going to put Sonia? Put Eloí Helena.' Because Eloí Helena was a girl my aunt loved, she was very beautiful. But she left, my father put Luísa Helena. Look how interesting. So I say it seems like I was... and she had a connection with me.
And your father complied, which is also not common, with his sister-in-law's request.
Yes. She had an influence over people, right? No, she did. But it wasn't like that. It seems like it was a thing of influence, of being. If you believe in something, it has to be.
Because it's interesting, right? Because she suggested Eloí Helena and it came out, he put Luísa Helena, including with a Z.
You know that today there are many Luizas in the family.
And you know what formed these four women? Like, the grandmother, where did these women come from? Because it's so unusual, this story you tell. I don't know if people listening realize, the trousseau in the interior, back then, was like a woman's patrimony. If you didn't have a trousseau, you were either very poor or it was completely unthinkable.
I didn't have a single silver cloth, no one believes that. It's interesting. My grandmother, who I knew for a long time, was very... the four were very close. She was a very strong, very refined woman, she crocheted very well. So, the only things I had, but not for my trousseau, were crochet tablecloths, crochet towels that she made for her daughters.
But I didn't have anything that we have a lot of today. My grandfather was from Bahia, very much a merchant, intuitive, but he was an alcoholic.
Wow. So, today I don't drink anything, I can't put anything in, because he was a very loved person, like almost all alcoholics.
Yes, my father was also an alcoholic, they are loved, right? It's curious.
Loved, they are loved when they are lucid, when they are well. And he was very smart, right? I think that part of commerce, of everything, and the balance came from my grandmother, but there came a moment when they couldn't stay together. He came to live with me, and I was the only one who could bring him home from the bars. 9, 10 years old. So, calling him to come home, that's what I want to tell you, when he was very bad.
And I got a trauma from alcohol. Later I had it because they had four daughters and four sons, but the sisters were the ones who had the same nucleus. Of those four brothers, there was one I loved very much who died very young because of alcohol.
Then I had Wagner, who was like a brother to me, one of the three who are there, who also became an alcoholic, and we were very close. So, I have a family tendency for alcoholism, right?
Yes. And then the women get together and form a kind of mini-clan that the men obey, right?
Yes. No, my youngest uncle, because he was much, much younger than the others, and younger even than the youngest sister, because he was a late child, they took him in a bit. So he studied in a private school, he studied in a boarding school, he became part of that nucleus of five in the company. He was a partner in the company, which the other three weren't, but he...
Because he was much younger, he was 8 years younger than the youngest, than Aunt Luiza, must have been about 10. So Aunt Luiza kind of disappeared. He even had polio as a child. And at the time she was already working, the others were already working, they had a bit more resources, they were still able to save him.
Luiza, if you had to ask to go to a party to do something, who would you ask? Your father, your mother, or your aunt when your mother was still alive?
I would ask both. My father, I struggled... my mother needed... not that I didn't have a connection, but I think my father, when he was younger, he was 13 years older than my mother. And when he was younger, later I found out, he was very sensitive and he would have these big crises. Today I understand what it was. And my mother put herself a bit in front of him so I wouldn't have... not that he didn't have a role, but so I wouldn't get the trauma of his crises, you know? You know, the kind of anger, panic...
It seems like he would get angry, hit the walls.
So, what I'm telling you is, she put herself between us. She placed herself, not in the relationship, we ate together, but she placed herself so I wouldn't get that trauma, right? I think if I saw it, it was once, very little.
You know? But then, she dies young. How does your relationship with her change?
That's what was interesting. My connection with Aunt Luiza and with her were different, but they were mother connections, you know? And I was very close to her, and her death was very sudden. My aunt was also very upset because she was the first of that nucleus to die. I was in my 30s, my oldest son was turning 9 in three days, and the others were five and six. So, that's what connected me most with her. But then my mother passed away, I got closer to my father.
Because he wasn't so young anymore, even though he drove, did everything. So I went to him, he said: 'I want to stay in my apartment for now.' And my mother used to tell me: 'If one day your father is without me, there will be a shortage of fossil fuel,' because they remembered everything very strongly. And interestingly, by intuition, I just told him: 'You're going to have lunch at my house every day, but you drive yourself home.'
And he drove for about three or four years after she died, without me ever having a problem. But I also respected him. I never... and there was never anything. But as time went on, about 4 years, he wasn't so young anymore.
We wanted, both my husband and I, for him to come live with us. He lived in a big house and I wanted him to come live with us. I had already re-established more affection, more intimacy.
And then my aunt, Aunt Luiza, and I went to his house, and my other aunt who lived on the fifth floor, because one lived on the fifth, another in the middle of the block, and another on the 13th. And we told him: 'Look, we want you to come live with me.' I said, 'But I'm not going to get used to it. Leave your house set up.' And it was the best thing. He lived with me for 14 years.
And it was a very good thing, because I discovered, because he played the accordion by ear, I saw him switch ears. So he must have been a very sensitive man, but very simple for the time, right? And we had very important episodes together, and we created a very strong bond. I say that if my mother had died later, I wouldn't have created it. And he became such a calm person, because I have a house at the reservoir where I take a lot of young people, and I always took the elderly everywhere.
And he never complained, he never talked about the noise, you know when a person has made peace with everything. And it was very cool. When my daughter turned 15, Ana Luísa, who is from the restaurant, she is very festive like me.
And at the time, 15th birthday parties were already a bit out of fashion, but she had a totally different one. And I looked at him, he was already living with me. I looked at him and said: 'Dad, would you like to have a party? What do you do for an 85-year-old? You have a lunch, invite the family, they go there, sing happy birthday and celebrate. That's what was done. I don't know why, by intuition and sensitivity, I'm very much like that, seeing the other and understanding. I saw him looking at the party, and I said, her birthday is May 30th and his is June 15th. I said: 'Would you like to have a big party like this?' He turned to me and said: 'I think I've always thought about that.'
And from then on, I have a farm at the reservoir. I did about 10 years of June festivals, but like, huge ones, huge ones, combining it with his birthday, because it coincided with the June festival which was his birthday. And I decided not to make it a surprise. So, he already had a nurse and driver, he was already in his 80s but lucid. At the time there wasn't digital like there is now, he had to go out handing out invitations, he would later watch the tapes, but it was a real party. And I said: 'Wow, people are going to give me pajamas.' So I invented that each family give me a tree, get together and give me a tree. And we created 'Vovô Nené's Grove'. He watched the trees grow.
That's beautiful. No, but it's a beautiful story, right? Because sometimes mothers close themselves off with their daughters to protect the daughter, to enjoy the daughter, to create a world of women, and leave the fathers out. And the fathers are also a bit lazy, a bit complacent, the men, right? They get a bit sidelined, and sometimes the loss of someone in that equation creates a relationship that you had, you had 15 more years with that man.
No, it was very cool. I say, I first learned from him how to deal with the elderly. And not to isolate the elderly. He sat at the dinner table with us, he had his place at the table, he went everywhere with us. And then I had a mother-in-law who also died at 103, and when her husband died, they are from Presidente Prudente, Mirante, she came to live in Franca because my husband and a son already lived there, but because of us.
And she was totally different, she loved parties. She was very emotionally intelligent, her children were always right. And we started having her 100th, 101st, 102nd, 103rd birthday parties. She loved me because I learned from my father how to deal with the elderly. You know, I learned to deal. With my mother's death, I was very upset, because when you are in your 30s, you don't change your role. You are still a daughter.
Mother is still a bit of a punching bag, right? Like, 'Where did you see that? You let everyone tell me these things,' but still demanding things from you. And I realized that I needed to change my role regardless of age. So, it was very cool with my aunts, with my father, with my mothers, my friends. I was one of the first in my group to lose a mother. I changed roles very early and I think that's good for us.
So you say that at 32, with the premature death of your mother, you realize that you are a mother to your children and that, well, when parents die, we realize that we are the next ones, right? That we are the last generation. Although I was the next one because I was very young, right?
Yes, yes. But there isn't much more, there isn't another generation. You lose... I think when you lose a mother, you lose. Even though my aunt was like a mother to me, my mother raised me more for the world, she more for her. She was jealous, it was everything. But you lose a bond with the person who loves you for who you are. The loss of a mother is a very serious thing. I think... and I think it was a mother who adored you, right? From what is told, right? Yes, right? But all of them, right? I think I have wonderful self-esteem, right?
Unique. Second, I was the niece of these four, unique. So I was always very, very loved.
Because we see how your love overflows, right? You have a loving capacity, not just to love people like that, but in everything you do, right? There's something that overflows.
But when you go to form your family, which is the second question, what became your family reference today, right? What from that family you had, an only child, you go and have three children. It's funny that there was a period, now that I'm older, I think it was good to be an only child, because I had these other three, four uncles of mine, many who had a lot of children and couldn't throw the party I threw for my father, because I don't know if you understand, they couldn't do what I did because I was an only child. Then there came a time when I thought it was good to be older, but as a child you really feel being an only child, even though the two were like brothers to me, so I shared my bicycle, I lived their lives a lot, they were each of their sons.
Right? So we were raised like siblings. And so, but it's not the same thing. That's what I say. So, it was an interesting thing. I also started working very early. At 12, I wanted to give presents. My mother heard me and said: 'You can't, go sell at the end of the year, you earn and give the presents you want.' And I went to sell and I did very well. I earned, made my first savings because they really encouraged work. So, I did, and they also realized I was a person who got along, of interacting. And when I turned 17, I graduated and went to night school and really started taking on many things. My aunt was a great entrepreneur, but not a manager.
And I had a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit, not as big as hers, but I graduated as a manager and did many things, so we balanced that well. So, I wasn't crazy about, 'I need to get married and have children,' you know those fantasy things, but at that time I was sure I didn't want to have only one child.
I want to return to this issue, but how wonderful, right? When a woman can think about what she wants, because if your whole life you had heard, 'Ah, this is the trousseau, you're going to have to get married, have children,' you probably wouldn't have formulated, 'Well, but what do I want?' It's almost as if you could only want that and a few other little things, right?
So much so that I have a friend of mine, and we studied together from 14, 15, 16 years old, and she was crazy to have children. I joked, 'I might not have them, but you won't.' And she had much more difficulty having children, much more. I would get pregnant every few months, because in three and a half years I had three.
Now, when I had the first one, I really wanted to have the second. Interesting, you know? Because I was afraid of it being a family trauma. That's it.
So, but there are two moments, right? When you are little and you miss the playmate who is actually a sibling, who shares parents, who you can complain about parents equally, right? Then there's a time when you say: 'Wow, but being an only child allowed me to offer things to my father that I couldn't have offered.' But it also gets to old age, right? That again being an only child might be difficult. How is it for you?
No, no, it's not, it's not because I create so many bonds with friends. And real friends. And like, funny, I don't feel lonely. I never felt lonely. It wasn't a trauma to be an only child, that I had to work on in therapy. It wasn't a trauma.
It was more of a desire to have a sibling than a trauma. You know? Because it was a very close family, right?
So, I didn't have that trauma. What I really had was when I had the first one, I said: 'Wow, but did I have friends who were only sons?' Including my cousins, I thought it was harder to have an only son. So, at the time I had very good friends, very dear ones, and I had my two cousins.
Right. That I thought it was much harder to have an only son than an only daughter.
Were you surprised the first one was a boy? You thought they were going to be all girls? No. Did you wish for it? At the time, there was no ultrasound for you to know, right?
People even told me: 'But you're going to have a girl,' everyone bet on it, and a boy was born. And then I had two girls. And like, my husband, when I saw, he had already chosen the name.
And it was all right with you?
Tired. You know that today I think Frederico was really his name. It's the name of a very dear nephew of mine. I thought it was beautiful. He goes by Fred.
Today I think I would have said, 'We'll change it,' but since you didn't know? Let him be born so we can know. When I see, he arrived at the hospital with the card already.
And then Frederico, he knew I wanted to put Trajano, right? And I thought it would be Guilherme, but I don't know if I also thought the name was right. I don't understand. Everyone says: 'But weren't you angry?' And I knew I wanted to have a daughter named Luísa, Ana Luísa.
Which was the second one, and he didn't even discuss it either, right?
So that causes me a nice curiosity, in the sense of the women in this family are strong, they get together and defend themselves, take care of each other, and share the children. There's something very beautiful about the relationship, and they don't get jealous of each other.
Yes, that's beautiful. I think that's very current too, of women uniting instead of having this myth of competing. But the men also join in, they aren't enemies, they aren't left out.
Yes, so, but it's interesting. I think the older men, for example, my uncle was Italian.
