What is one of your favorite memories of your mother?

Every Wednesday after school my mom picked me up for tutoring sessions. I was failing Spanish and Algebra. School was a challenge for me and so was home life. It was just my mom and I at home and it was not going well. My mom was busy working, taking classes and making her life over. My dad had been dead for two years. One sister was in college and the other married.

My focus was not at school and I just accepted I was failing. I thought my mom was not paying attention. It turns out she was and found a tutor for me. At first I met her with resistance. Then the tutor turned out to be really nice and the drive with my mom had its own rewards. We talked about how I did not fit in at school. I basically hated it. What I really wanted was to go to this certain private arts and culture high school. It is all I wanted to talk about. The problem was it was expensive and we were poor.

One day after tutoring we drove out to this school. It was a beautiful setting near the Hudson River. We sat quietly in the parking lot. I broke the silence by saying,” I need to go here, it would change my life.”  My mom listened and then said, “It is probably just a bunch of rich, snobby kids. It would be no fun. And what would you learn anyway?” That did not change my mind one bit, it only reinforced how wrong she was. I teared up. She looked at me and said, “You know it might be a wonderful school and I do wish I could send you here. We just cannot afford it. That’s all. You are smart. You’ll be okay.” It took me a lot of years to believe I was smart, but my mom saw me in that moment. She was kind and caring. I knew she felt bad that we were poor. I never had a need to talk about it again.  And I passed Spanish and Algebra.  Remembering moments like this, I really miss my mom. Thanks mom.