Let Me Go On and On!

Today is my ama’s birthday. She’s 54 years old. She hates having her picture taken, I hope I can convince her to take one this year.

*fingers crossed*

Here are some pictures I love of her.

This is her in 1978, when her and my apa were still dating.

This is in 1986 in Mexico City. That’s my uncle to her right and my apa to her left. That’s me, the little short squirt with her messed up hair, I haven’t changed much. It still looks like that on my best days! lol

And this is a portrait (one of my favs) that I took back in 2006.

Isn’t she gorgeous? I look nothing like her.

Ama is the strongest woman I know. In my entire life, I’ve only seen her cry once. Sometime last year in October. It nearly broke my heart to see her cry (and by crying I mean about 3 tears). I remember asking my apa once if he’d ever seen her cry and he said once but she told him that she had cried enough years ago to last her a lifetime, she was all cried out.

Ama is hard to describe. She’s not mean, but she’s not a happy-go-lucky person who giggles….ever! She’s more on the serious side. She’s very dainty and small. She’s about 5 feet. She is quiet and reserved. She’s very classy too and I Iove to see her get all dressed up because she’s the kind of woman who doesn’t fear wearing a red dress with red lipstick.

She’s very Mexican in a lot of ways, but there’s definitely what I call a 2nd generation Mexican-American in her, even though she was born and raised in Mexico. She’s what you would say in spanish “muy guapa en la cocina.” Which means she can COOK! She’s quick and everything always comes out just amazing and delicious. She’s one of those people that is up at the crack of dawn and goes to bed at midnight. She isn’t ever sick, I always tell her it’s probably her awesome Mexican-Indian blood. Whenever we got sick, she’d always have a good home remedy that didn’t require store bought drugs. And she has good random tips too.   I was having issues once with a cat walking all over my car at night. Scratching the paint on my car. leaving foot prints behind. She told me to spread some black pepper around the car and the cat wouldn’t get on it anymore because cats hate the smell of pepper.

WHO KNEW!

But that’s Ama for you! It’s my belief that due to her years of experience, she has some amazing wisdom. She’s always given me bits and pieces of the best advice in the world. In honor of her birthday, I’m going to share with you what to me is priceless.

1. When I was a kiddo I watched this movie where a kid died. It freaked me out. I was old enough to understand that people die, that there’s a heaven and a hell. In my head though, “OLD” people died, not kids. I spent the night tossing and turning because I couldn’t sleep and I was scared of dying. Ama with her amazing maternal instincts woke up in the middle of the night to check on me and found me with my eyes wide open. She asked me what was wrong and I told her I was scared of dying because of the movie and the kid that died. I asked her if she was scared of dying. The thing about ama is, even as a kid, she never treated me like one. She didn’t sugar coat things and always told me the truth. She didn’t give me the “kids never die” answer. She said she wasn’t scared of dying. I asked her why and she said that every day when she woke up, her goal that day was to give the best she had of herself to the people she loves the most, my older brother, sister, apa and me (my younger brother had not been born yet). She told me that if every day I was alive I would give the best of ME that was possible that day to the people I love and care about the most, then I wouldn’t be scared of dying either. If you give the best you have of yourself to the people you love and care about, then you’ll have no regrets. And a person who has no regrets usually doesn’t fear death.

2. You know your parents are always telling you never to lie to them. I never got the, “your nose will grow if you lie” bit. I did though on my first day of HS get the other version. It went a little something like this: Ama was dropping me off to my first day of HS when she started to tell me that HS is different, I was growing up and I had to make decisions for myself. She said she trusted me but unfortunately didn’t trust the other kids. She then handed me about two dollars worth of quarters and told me that if I ever decided to skip school (which would be awesome since my HS was located downtown) to give her a call and let her know. She wouldn’t be mad, she’d be disappointed but not mad. What WOULD make her mad is if she got a call that the school was burning down and she rushed to the school with her heart in her throat wondering if I was still alive only to find out later that I had skipped school. She said if that ever happened and she didn’t know about it, she’d personally kill me for giving her a heart attack. LOL

The second no lie advice I got later in my early 20’s. I was going through some personal “early 20’s” issues/mistakes and of course, her maternal instinct picked it up right away. My mother isn’t the nosy kind, but she is a mother. She basically sat me down and asked me what was wrong. I was reluctant at even telling her because I wanted to be grown up and figure out how to solve my own problem. That’s when she told me that it was fine, that she’d rather I not tell her then I lie to her. “See the thing is,” she said, “is that I’m your mother and I’ll always want to help you fix your problems. But I don’t want you to lie to me, because you can’t fix a lie.” I remember telling her what happened after that and asked her to let me figure it out myself, she did and let me know she was there if I needed her.

3. Ama is the one person that probably knows me better than myself. I have this characteristic like my father where I’m way too honest. Sometimes it’s a bad thing, sometimes it’s a good thing. You know that person that will tell you exactly how that shirt your wearing looks, I’m that person. But I don’t just go around telling people stuff like that, but if someone asks, I am honest and always tell them, “that’s MY opinion.” Ever since I was little Ama would always tell me never too loose my honesty. If people didn’t like it, didn’t like me for being honest or what have you, then at least “I” was honest. I was honest with my feelings, with myself and I should never think twice of it. It’s who I am and I had to learn to accept that part of me.

4. It kind of goes with number 3. You know how as humans we can all get self-conscious about ourselves. It starts around JHS and sometimes we mature out of it, but for the most part, it’s never really gone. I remember this girl not liking me in JHS and it bummed me out. Ama asked me what she was like, I told her I didn’t know because she didn’t like me and so I never go to hang out with her. She asked me if there was anybody that I didn’t like in my grade. Of course there’s always SOMEONE! She asked me why I didn’t like her and I gave her tons of reasons. Then she said she thinks I should have a RIGHT not to like her. I agreed. Then she said, “Just like I think the girl that doesn’t like you has a right not to like you.” WHAAAA?? The thing is, in life there are people you will not like in life. There are people that will not like you in life.  We can’t please everyone.  Instead of wasting your time wondering why someone doesn’t like you, you should just respect their decision. It’s better then wondering day in and out why they don’t like you. And who are they for you to change anyways.

Ama is an incredible person. I look up to her in so many ways and hope to one day be as strong as she has been my entire life.

Here’s wishing her many more birthday’s and lots of blessings!

Have you hugged and thanked your mom today? Mother’s day is coming up, don’t wait until then!