Growing up with my mom who was single, I never saw her buy a fancy car, beautiful clothes, or shoes. She was a savvy shopper and was always at the clearance sale section at a department store. She was happy to wear a simple gold watch and a gold necklace and a couple of gold diamond rings.
My sisters, brothers and I (one of my brothers is my twin) come from a lower-to-middle income family. My mother was one of the few of sixteen children who got a divorce while we were still toddlers and let my father take everything as long as she didn’t have to have anything to do with him.
She worked her simple job, came home everyday, never brought any strangers home and was pretty much content with her simple and single life. She had her friends, dating once in a while, enjoyed her moments while at ‘home’, cooking, cleaning, watching her ‘novelas’, or reading a book. It was the park or the beach for the weekend, and the usual everyday duties and activities.
But to me, there is more to life than just an ordinary day. There is more to life than just waking up in the mornings, getting ready for work, working for a week-to-week paycheck, paying the bills, and staying home just being mom.
She never told me why a doctor is a doctor, a lawyer a lawyer, a teacher a teacher, or why she chose to stay working at a clothing boutique store for so many years without making any changes or doing something better for her life. Routines to me are boring and I classify them as stagnant behavior.
She had talked to me about life insurance, “just in case something were to happen,” she had said. I said, “Mom, you are not going to die.” Well, let’s face it. We will all be in a casket one day or burnt to ashes. In the meantime, I thought that mom would stay around for at least the next 30 years. I lost her two months later; she was 55 when she passed. That was seven years ago.
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