Marie F. Jurado, 1933-2017

The first time I met Randy's mom, in 2014, she gave me a heavy amethyst necklace and said, "Welcome to the family." (Jewelry was her love language!)

The next time I met Marie, she told me that she still had relationships with her former daughters-in-law. (All her sons went through divorces.) After confronting my own petty insecurities, I realized what a beautiful lesson this was -- that her relationships weren't based on "marrying in," but that I too would have the opportunity to develop a relationship with her independent of my relationship with her son.

On our California wedding day she told me that I was "right" and "good" for Randy. A parent's blessing is a powerful thing.

Six months later, Randy and I were playing UNO in the hospital waiting room while Mom underwent exploratory surgery. We watched as the doctor came in and out, telling families that surgeries went well and their loved ones were in recovery and they could visit soon. I had an epic hand, about to make Randy draw 4 and 4 more and skip him all the way to victory, when the doctor came for us.


But instead of him giving us the spiel he gave everyone else, he said, "Follow me." So we followed him to what looked like a smoking lounge in an airport, and was labeled "Quiet Room," but which is really known universally as the "bad-news room."

"It isn't good," he said. She had Pulmonary Hypertension. He gave her 6 months. We asked what kind of restrictions she had and he said "none." She was going to die. She should do what she wants.

Mom's initial reaction was, "I want to go home." Randy and I mentally packed our bags to New Mexico.

The next day she said, "I want to be near family," who were all in California at the time. Randy and I mentally unpacked.

A few days later it was Mother's Day, 2015. Randy and I brought Mom Chinese food and we watched "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" together. I heard her on the phone. She said, "I am a fighter. I'm going to the Amazon in February. My granddaughter Alyssa is going with me. If she can't, my daughter-in-law Katie will go." Of course I would. Though we never made the trip.

The next year was a blur of doctor's appointments, in which I got to see her heart. Literally and figuratively. There is something so powerful about a person who invites you into their pain, their hardships, their life when they are at their most vulnerable.

During one of the appointments I took her to, I watched as she had an Echocardiogram -- basically a sonogram of her heart working. "What does it look like?" she asked me. It was like a cross between the delicacy and grace of a butterfly fluttering its fragile wings, and the strength and power of a superhero whose muscles clench and pump and burst with aliveness.

I also watched as she grew frustrated at all the things that once were part of her existence become harder and harder. Traveling being chief among them. Randy and I took her to New Mexico to renew her driver's license. She knew all the best places to stop along the way -- to eat, to fill up with gas, to be tourists. She grew frustrated when we wanted to go our own way, and we grew frustrated at her frustration.

But then her husband got out of prison and she turned into a schoolgirl all over again. In the midst of fighting for her own health, she had also been fighting for justice for him. (It's a beautiful story that I touch on here: No Purpose In Pie Town.) That FIERCE love was the drive that kept her alive more than 2 years longer than the doctors expected.

Randy and I moved to Mexico shortly after, allowing the two to have a long-overdue honeymoon, as they celebrated nearly 27 years of marriage.

Mom died on November 29, 2017.

In the weeks that followed, Randy and I spent time with her husband, Randy's step-dad, my father-in-law. He told us what that honeymoon period was like. Bike rides. Paddleboats. RV camping. Verbal sparring, even though he knew all along he would let her get her way. Moving "home" to New Mexico. The peace that comes from walking barefoot on a dirt road that seemingly has no end. Love that washes each other's feet with every glance and kiss and smile. The smile that lit up her face when she saw her husband, her sons, her granddaughters, even when it grew impossible to breathe. Every ordinary day a blessing.

Mom loved fiercely. That is her legacy to me.

Travel well, Mom. Until we meet again...