She continues her mother’s life lessons
“I remember everything. I was 7 years old when she started being nauseous and feeling weak. I would walk her to the restroom and back to the living room. At first, she thought she was pregnant. But it was cancer. And it spread. It attacked her organs.
“It was pretty hard on me. I was really, really close to her. I would even sleep with her in the hospital. One time she told me, ‘Baby, I’m going to be gone. You’d better get ready.’ She was preparing me for the worst. In less than a year, it was over. She was 38 when she passed away.
“I still get sad when I think about it. But I have lots of good memories of her, too. I remember her walking with me to school every morning. And in the summer, we used to look at the stars every single night. My middle name is Lucero. In Spanish, it means bright star. So she would point to the sky and say, ‘That’s you, baby. That’s you right up there.’ To this day, I like to sit outside and look at the stars every night. And I talk to my mom. I tell her, ‘I need your strength.’
“Her name was Martha. She loved life. She loved helping people. We didn’t have much. But if she saw somebody who had less and needed it more than we did, she’d take food to their house. And she took me with her. I still remember when I was like 3 years old, she would give me the bag of food and say, ‘Here, you give it to them.’ She was showing me what it means to be a caring person. And it stuck. Because I love the feeling of helping people without expecting anything in return. Just like my mom.”
— Brenda Avila
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