The Lily: A Luza Story Years ago when my mom, Luza was still with us, she gifted me a beautiful lily. The same type that she carried in her wedding bouquet. ❤️💕❤️The lily faithfully grows every year and blooms on her birthday at the end of February. That’s just like her to give me a beautiful way to remember her. We put bricks down in this ...
Luza
Selective Reality
It's not that we didn't know it was coming. I'm talking about my mom, Luza. She was, after all, 102 years old - going on 103, mind you. My sisters and I had often discussed things like, "this might be her last - *Birthday, Mother's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas." *(__________) fill in the blank* We started throwing her birthday parties when ...
The Quinceañera Story and A Homemade Mayonnaise Recipe
My mom just recently celebrated her . (It's still weird to say that.) As people do when they get older, she repeats stories that she particularly likes or maybe it's that the memory gets fresher as time passes. Either way, as her birthday approached, she would tell the story of her 15th birthday. In Cuba, as in other ...
My Mom is 101
I keep repeating it to myself and to anyone who will listen. "My mom is one-hundred-and-one." It's not the number of years that strikes me as odd. It's the amount of life still left in her at 101. "My mom is one-hundred-and-one." I try to explain to people what she is like. What it's like to have a 101 year ...
Missing the Mess
I was having a conversation with my mom (Luza, who, by the way, is 100 years old) and I was telling her how weird it was to only have 1 of my kids left at home. Technically, even Jonathan is not here, because he's gone most of the time with school and auditions and driving to LA and rehearsals for the play he's in. So I find myself ...
The Secret of Long Life
As many of you know, yesterday we celebrated my mom, Luza's 100th birthday. Thank you all for the wonderful birthday wishes. I printed them all out and they're going in her newest scrapbook, but that's not important right now. When you reach a certain age, in this case, 100 years, people often ask, "So, what's your ...
Cuco and Yayo
My mom, Luza, is 99 (and a half) years old.That's me & Luza. She's 99 in this photo.She's always been a very curious person and to this day, she loves learning. So a few years ago she was asking about how the internet search engines work. I tried explaining it in the simplest terms.What was awesome is that I then heard her regurgitate ...
Where in the world is Marta today?
I realize I haven't been posting as often as I like and I apologize, but that doesn't mean I'm not around. In fact, I seem to be all over the web today. I'm guest posting in a couple of places: I have an essay about Mother's Day over at the Tiki Tiki. I tell you a lot about Luza. It's titled "My Mother. My ...
The Bible – the Original Novela
As you know, my mom is 97. I always feel compelled to tell her age when I'm writing about her because:It makes the story I'm about to tell that much more amazing. Nobody makes 97 year olds anymore like the one that happens to be my mother. ;-)Luza (my 97 year old mom - See? I did it again) is constantly reading. She always has a book ...