Song Lyric of the Day:
And then there suddenly appeared before me / The only one my arms will ever hold / I heard somebody whisper, “Please adore me” /And when I looked, the moon had turned to gold, oh
The Marcels / “Blue Moon“
My mom is dead.
That was how I started my journal entry dated August 17, 2021. I’d started journaling in earnest on January 1, 2020, and was at this time up to my sixth journal; I still haven’t missed a day of journaling and am now on journal number 18.
For the three loyal readers I have left (see what I did? I added one), well, this explains why I haven’t updated this blog in years. Because when my mom died, I lost direction. And motivation. And focus. Those things have come back over time, of course, but now my life is divided into two distinct periods: the before and the after. The before is when my mom was still with us, and the after is the life we’ve all had to continue without her. I’m not going to lie — there’s been a lot of family drama since she died. To be fair, some of it started before she died. That drama certainly didn’t help things. But I think she’d be happy (enough) with how we’re doing. It hasn’t been easy, though. Because what nobody told me about when my mom would die is that the only person I would want to talk to, to be held by, to listen to me, would be my mom. And that would never be possible again. But that’s all I wanted after she died — to be able to talk to her again. To hug her and tease her about how much shorter than me she was. I should have hugged her more.
I once described how it felt when Ma died as a living nightmare. Everything was almost surreal. What do you mean my mom isn’t here anymore? How can she be dead? The nightmare has since abated. Mostly, anyway. There are still times it hits me like a sledgehammer, but most days it’s just my new normal.
Since she died, I’ve called my dad every single day to talk to him, even when I’ve been traveling. Rich, the kids, and I try to have Dad over for dinner every now and then, and I drag him to the occasional movie. He and Ma used to go to the movies every weekend, so I make a point of finding a movie I know he’ll like and taking him to see it with me. I’m lucky he’s just a short drive from our house and that I can still hug him whenever I need it.
When my mom died, I managed to write her obituary. It was a badge of honor that even friends and family who I hadn’t spoken to in a while could tell I’d written it. My sisters and my dad signed off on what I wrote, although given his state of shock, I think he would’ve signed off on anything at that point. I also started a document I titled “Notes About Mom” to give to the pastor who would speak at her funeral; none of us were up to speaking ourselves. I kept referring to these “notes,” and it wouldn’t hit me until weeks, maybe months afterward, that what I’d written was actually my mom’s eulogy. I guess my brain just didn’t want me to deal with that surreal task of writing my mom’s eulogy, so “notes” it was.
I miss her and think about her every single day. I can hear her now: “You wrote about me on the internet?” Never mind that I’m also posting a photo of her here. In closing I’ll leave you with one of my favorite pictures I took of my mom, and the “notes” I wrote that barely scratched the surface of who she was and what she meant to our family.
There are so many ways to describe Lupe: outspoken, stubborn, opinionated, bossy, crazy, fun. She was the OG cat lady, reflected in her love of leopard-print patterns. She loved science fiction and fantasy; the worse the sci-fi movie, the more she loved it (just ask the grandkids). She had a terrifyingly vast collection of housedresses, all paired with her chancletas.
Lupe Moreno Sanchez was born in Manhattan, New York, and carried her native New Yorker attitude and accent throughout her life. She was above all a loving wife to Santiago and supportive mother to Patricia, Samantha, and Vanessa. She was also loving and supportive to her grandchildren, especially in how she’d sneak them sweet treats no matter what time of day, and just because. She loved her sister, Bea, with all her heart, and was a beloved aunt, cousin, and friend to countless others. Her family has officially lost count of how many people have claimed her as their surrogate mom.
She loved Santiago as every phase of their relationship evolved over the years throughout newlywed-dom, parenthood, parenting teenagers (yes, it’s a whole different thing), and finally, grandparenthood. She doted on Patricia, her firstborn, who basked in the attention for several years as an only child. Lupe managed to of course also dote on Samantha and Vanessa when they were born a few years later, because if there was one thing she was capable of, it was her tremendous capacity to love. She passed on her ability to memorize song lyrics, and her love of animals, reading, and movies to all her daughters. Only Patricia inherited her horrible sense of direction. Samantha and Vanessa lucked out and inherited Santiago’s impeccable sense of direction and ability to memorize routes after only one drive.
Lupe had special, distinctly different relationships with all her grandkids based on their personalities. She was even known by different names: the Lee grandkids called her Abuela. The Wooden kids called her Momma. The Pood kids called her Grandma. Despite her initial disappointment that her first grandchild was a boy (yes, she told us), Elliott became her favorite Forensic Files viewing partner. Stephen enjoyed watching HGTV with her, and could unleash his inner old man and be his true self around her. Coraline loved just sitting and talking with her Abuela about anything and everything; she already misses the grilled-cheese sandwiches she made. Miranda was given and has the middle name of Guadalupe for a very good reason; if you know, you know. Sabrina is sassy to the core and stubborn as a mule; guess who she got that from. Adriana was her enthusiastic sparring partner, another chip off the old stubborn block. Sebastian, the youngest, gave Lupe a run for her money. She thought she’d seen stubbornness in her life and with her first six grandchildren. She was wrong.
Lupe loved her sons-in-law Richard and Kenneth, and enjoyed henpecking them mercilessly as if they were her own flesh-and-blood sons. She also fed them lots of delicious food, because that’s what Puerto Ricans do. If you don’t let us feed you, we worry you’ll starve without our help.
She also loved her friends as if they were family, and took many of her daughters’ friends under her wings, whether they wanted her to or not. She offered them advice, love, and, naturally, food. Although since she treated them as if they were her own, that included her occasionally getting mad with them. Right, Mandi? One surrogate son, Craig, still swears to this day that when she got mad her hazel eyes would turn red.
She would have loved to travel more, but did have some adventures in her life. She visited Mexico, where she unwittingly tried iguana tacos. She made trips to Puerto Rico to visit friends and family. She went back to New York City when she could. She went to Las Vegas a few times, playing Star Wars slots so long it turned into an all-nighter the night before the flight home. She accompanied Patricia to Paris after a contest win. She got to see a NASCAR race in Atlanta with Samantha, courtesy of another contest win. Samantha also took Mom with her on a trip to New York City won via a radio contest. Mom cheered on Lady Gaga with Vanessa in Las Vegas. And she accompanied the whole family on local adventures the grandkids wanted: the Lost Sea, Ruby Falls, and Lookout Mountain.
She was never without a book. She hated all-white kitchens. After years spent working in movie theaters, she couldn’t stand the smell of popcorn. She wasn’t a fan of French fries, although the waffle fries at Chick-fil-A were an exception. She loved Elvis Presley and classic rock from the ‘50s and ‘60s, and loved to sing along with the songs — badly. She loved the color purple and squirrels, and was a news junkie. She learned to game the system with her diabetes so she could always safely enjoy cake; the more frosting, the better. She had an almost-psychic ability to predict soap opera storylines. You knew when she’d gone through the perfume section at Dillard’s, because you could smell her coming from a mile away. A proud flip-phone owner until 2017, she was terrible at keeping her cellphone on her or fully charged. She did master using emojis in texts, though, particularly the smiling clown one, to Samantha and Vanessa’s horror and Patricia’s endless amusement.
Family traditions, especially around holidays, meant the world to her. Any celebration was an excuse to feed her loved ones. Her red rice and beans is the stuff of legend. She never got rid of anything, particularly personalized address labels sent to her by organizations to which she’d donated; she also got the occasional pair of funky-patterned socks as a thank you. She leaves behind lots of handwritten notes and lists, her vast shot glass and magnet collections, and a dubious DVD collection of Steven Seagal movies. She thought the ABC News chief meteorologist, Rob Marciano, was a hottie (not as hot as Santiago, though).
She wanted nothing more than to watch all her grandbabies grow up, be in school plays and musicals, graduate from school, go to college, and get married. She will still see them do all those things; they won’t be able to see her, but they will all still feel her presence and love. Because if you knew Lupe, you knew you were loved. Her daughters will do their best to keep Santiago strong, upright, and on the straight and narrow. There will always be pets to love and spoil. Everyone will go to movies and talk about how much she would have loved them. And there will always be funny stories and memories to share of how much Lupe was loved in return. Hopefully over time the pain of not having her here with us will lessen, but our love for her never will.
