TRUE STORY
The offer I Could Not Refuse
If it was not for my mother and understanding Father, I don’t know where I’d be in my life today.
I graduated from high school in December 1963 with about 20 other students in a school run by Augustinian Priests.
I chose the image above because all of us are like stars in the universe. It is up to us to take the initiative to form ourselves like the ancient stars in the Universe. The materials for formation are available to anyone. If I could do it, any healthy individual can. the “Core energy,” that formulates who we are comes from us. Knowledge is acquired by us. Knowledge is out there like “The gas that will go on to cool, clump, and form new stars.”
I studied that summer to get ready for the Law School Admission test in March. I was eighty slots short of admission.
I started a prep academy for next year's admission test. I had to travel thirty miles back and forth every day to go to this academy.
One day as I was going upstairs to my bedroom (it was kitty-corner to my parent's room), I heard my mother, “Roberto is that you?” Yes, “Come to my room I’d like to discuss something with you.” Once there I saw she was darning socks. “Please sit next to me and listen.” The respect my mother harnessed from us as we grew up trained us to listen, she had raised us, cooked, washed, and cleaned for 10 of us. We were the troop of a drill sergeant. She was short, we were tall (like my father), and size had nothing to do with it — Respect did.
Side story — The day my oldest brother was getting married, he came home fuming about something and my mother asked him a question which he decided to answer with a mix of bad words, I saw her jump and before she hit the ground she had given him two hard slaps on the face, then said — “you don’t talk to your mother like that.”
I sat next to her, “Respect.” She started:
“I know you are preparing for next year’s exam at Law School, I also know that lately, you have been coming home late and sometimes drunk. This tells me you are not necessarily serious about your pursuit.” I thought, “How does she know!?” I had always wanted to be an engineer but had the worst grades of my whole class AND my brothers in science. I was the laughingstock of the house when it came to math (this is another story). My father hired a tutor for Algebra so I could graduate.
She continued: “I have been giving this some thought and made a decision: ‘I want you to go to the United States for you to make something of yourself or, I will talk to my brother Paco, who is in charge of the draft to signed you up with the Peruvian Marines for life.’”
After the room stopped going around me, and looking like I was giving this offer some thought I said, “Mother, I will go to the United States.”
Her reply? “Good! Go to the embassy and start the paperwork, I want to see it and for you to tell your father what you are doing, and if you need help ask.”
In March 1965 I landed in the Los Angeles International Airport with my immigration papers in hand.
I want to give all the credit for what she did because without her “Push and support” we may not have attained any goals and made a lot of excuses. My mother was the leader of the house, we were part of it so she knew everything about us.
My father was the equalizer, always asking us questions and debating whatever was in our minds. He was a leader in my town. He single-handedly created a volleyball park for all the youth and formed a women’s league of volleyball that became very competitive and had competition games during the weekend. This enabled the town to compete nationally. He was asked to be part of the National Volleyball Association.
Both of them were very religious. I am an agnostic who believes in the existence of an omnipotent and benevolent God.
Thank You for Reading.
