Month: May 2015

May 2015

Didn’t Know

May 28, 2015 / Uncategorized

I didn’t bother correcting him when he mentioned that we were married for 12 years. After all, it had been 35 years since we met and fell in love. I didn’t feel the need to make him wrong for being off by a year. Here we were together again. My children’s father and I had flown from Nebraska to New York to celebrate our firstborn’s completion of grad school at NYU. Benjamin had gently negotiated that his brother and I would arrive a few days prior to the ceremony, his father staying a few days after. In the middle were

Stage Fright

May 21, 2015 / Uncategorized

She looked up at me with a look I was not accustomed to seeing from my spunky Sophia. My normally precocious and extroverted little girl held insecurity and worry in her big brown eyes. At the ripe age of 8, she was suddenly shy as those feelings of stage fright started to take hold as I walked her to the backstage entrance for her very first dance recital. I squatted down to eye level, faced her toward me and took both of her hands in mine. I said, “You know what people like to see? It isn’t the dance steps

Mariachi Mother’s Day

May 14, 2015 / NEXT: An Empowerment Series

I had a 3 o’clock appointment for a massage from Fernando. I separated from my six travel companions who were more willing than me on this Mother’s Day morning to haggle with the street vendors hawking brightly colored scarves and silver necklaces. I walked quickly to an uncertain destination with my eyes straight ahead under my big black sunhat. In the distance I could see the ocean. I quickened my pace until I arrived at the plaza that opened onto the beach. A line had gathered outside a small white chapel whose entrance was covered in white flowers drooping in

Mom: A Tribute

May 7, 2015 / Uncategorized

I was 14 when I first felt my heart break. My one true love, Tommy, decided to move on as we left junior high for the greener pastures of high school. My stomach turned as I felt the upset of change, insecurity, and teenage despair wash over me. At a time when my mom regularly embarrassed me, she was who I turned to for comfort. She held my head in her lap as she stroked my hair and I sobbed. My mom, during any time of uncertainty, would count down the hours for me. On the eve of the first