Making a Wish come true

1957 My mom is the oldest of the girls from her Family, when she was 11 years old her father died of a massive heart attack, leaving my grandma widowed at the age of 32 with 11 kids the youngest being 9 months. My mother tells me that after the burial of my grandpa, she was taken out of school because she needed to work to help my grandma with the kids and help with the selling of the tamales, “elotes”, flowers, anything to get food on the table for them. I don’t know how long this went on for, my mom only gives bits and pieces of what went on I am sure she does not want to remember the sad details of her life. She does tell me that my grandmother started working as a “waitress” in a bar in Ensenada, and for some “odd” reason would leave my uncles and aunts for days, she tells me that there where days that they went without food, they would only have leaves from the orange tree as tea, and a tortilla. Her childhood was taken from her, her teenage years where spent being the mother and father of 10 siblings taking care of them 24/7 . So she never had a Quinceañera. And as far as I can remember she has always wanted one. I can’t go into details of the rest of her “younger years” she will kill me. All I can say is that she endured pain and suffering for the longest time. …let me skip to today…2009… February…. Well she turned out be an awesome mother, sister, wife, friend. Always working and taking care of everyone else. Oh boy did she love to work… she was a nanny for a wonderful family when she was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, for those of you that do not know this is a life threatening illness that will stay with her for life. She was faced without having insurance, and needing treatment as soon as possible for her prognosis was not good. Although scared she took the “bull by the horns” and as soon as she got her insurance started her aggressive treatment with a God sent Dr. from Moores Cancer Center. She has been on treatment since February up till now. She has a donor for her Bone Marrow, but because of her age she is at high risk and the Dr. is holding off on the BMT, so far she has had 6 rounds of chemotherapy, she has lost her hair ( we call her our GI Jane). And thru out this time I have never seen her give up… ( she is a fighter!!) I am telling you this story because I would like for her dream to come true, give her the gift of having her Quinceañera. She will be 63 years old this year. I know for a lot of you this might not be a lot. But if you had a mother like her, and knew that she was facing this disease, I am sure you would be humbled and do the same thing for your mom. Life is full of surprises and I believe that if we do good in this world we receive good… for those that are willing to help, I am sure you will be blessed over and over again. Thank you for reading my blog I will keep you posted on her condition, she will be going to her 7th round of chemo on June 18th for about 3 days. In the mean time, all prayers are welcomed so we can give her all the strength she need.