My mom made it happen

"The last kiss I gave you was while you were wearing the yellow onesie with the duck", my mom later wrote to me on a letter sent from across the ocean.

I was five, how could I have understood where she went?

"She left for you... she left for your future", my grandma would say when the tears uncontrollably streamed my face.

I sat waiting by the livingroom window every day after school. Wishing, praying, hoping, to see her come back with the little suitcase she took and her oversized 90's coat.

"Three months and I'll be back", my mother's words echoed in my mind every time I missed her too much.

Five years passed and I had yet to see her face.

The pictures and letters she sent from the United States were all I could hold on to when my childhood memories became so fleeting.

Fast forward five more years.

"I hate you!" the 15-year-old version of myself screamed at my mom, now both of us living in Florida.

"What kind of mother leaves her five year old?" I murmured as I slammed the door behind me.

After the teenage fireworks subsided, I left my room for a glass of water and saw my mom wiping her tears while sitting by the kitchen counter.

That image of my mom, so hurt, so lonely, so broken... will forever stay in my mind.

Before that day, I had no idea why she had stayed so long (without me).

Her life was so picture-perfect when I arrived. It made me bitter.

I cried every day she was gone when I was little.

I imagined over and over again what her embrace would feel like.

Would she like me? Was I someone my mom would love still? If I could barely remember her, could she have forgotten me?

Maybe that’s why she didn’t return.

I knew she left for a better future.

But what does that really mean when you’re a child?

I had my family, I was loved and wanted.

I couldn’t understand why that wasn’t enough for my mom to want to stay.

Or to want to come back.

Turns out, illegal immigration is a bitch.

My mom, 24, single, with a five year old, unemployed, without opportunities and with even less people willing to help her, won a ticket lottery in Ecuador and made a run for it.

It was a return ticket, but she gave up her return flight for the opportunity of a new life...for me, for her.

My mom sold flowers on the street in the hot Florida summers. She worked 18-hour shifts at 711. Slept in a tiny bedroom without curtains and without much to eat.

My mom never missed my mothly school payment.

She chose not to go back, even when her father passed away and she couldn’t attend the funeral.

Had she left, she wouldn’t have been able to go back to the US because she had been there illegally.

She couldn’t take me to live with her there either, because she was there illegally.

Eventually, the gods of good fortune and a few guardian angels my mom found along the way came together and helped her create the life she had fought for so fearlessly.

Fast-forward 15 years.

Today, my mom is my friend, my hero, my guru and my inspiration.

She’s happy most of the time.

She’s healthy and excited about life. Her life, that she crafted day after day.

She bought her own home last year.

Me, I write this from my comfy home in Northern England.

I'm turning 30 this year and I am independent, self-sufficient, and so infinitely grateful to my mom.

My life is filled with love, kindness and opportunity.

I don't have to worry because for all accounts and purposes, "I've made it".

The reality is, my mom made it. She made it all happen.

Without her bravery and fearlessness, I can be certain that I would not have made it this far.

We are products not just of our choices, but of the choices of those before us.

We are the continuation of the stories of our ancestors.

Thank you, mom. For giving me the world.