super madre!

One of the most inspiring people that I have met in my life has got to be my mother. She's a Venezuelan born lady who left her homeland at 19 to see the world. She lived in Perugia, Italy studying Italian and then made her way to England with hitch-hike galavants and her very own free spirited adventures before meeting my father and settling down to married life and babies. That's the short version. The fact that she was born in to a very poor world that many of us in the west can only imagine, living in a simple and humble family concrete bungalow where she supported her family financially at an age where many of us are still at school also adds to her incredibly amazing and inspiring life story.

Mum has come in and out of my travels and the evolution of our relationship and our experiences has been the most impressionable and powerful as I'm sure any one can imagine. She's a super woman and despite at times wishing for some motherly loving in moments of despair and sickness, I've learned to take care of myself which has been hard for us both to realise. As any traveler will know, those moments are the hardest and most loneliest while being far from loved ones has taken a lot of getting used to.

I asked Mum what the best advice she ever received was recently when she came to visit me in New York. Her response moved me so much and gave me another level of appreciation and respect for her that I had to share it.

My younger brother was born with a hole in his heart and the blood circulating his body in the wrong direction along with a couple of broken ribs. Intuitively Mum knew something was wrong with him, he wouldn't breastfeed, his skin was pale and yet every time she saw a doctor they told her he was fine. I am sure any parent will know how upsetting it feels to sense something wrong with one's newborn and being met with wall after wall of cynicism from those who are 'supposed to know'.  Eventually after tests, doctors realised my brother James had a serious heart condition and at 7 months old was to be one of the youngest children to have a heart by-pass in the UK. It was a tragic time for my family. Mum explained to me that as she prepared for her baby to go in to surgery the anaesthetist turned to her and gave her those words of wisdom that she still carries with her today; "Stop crying and get yourself together. If you want your boy to live you need to be brave and give him stregnth. Be happy and play with him and make sure that he can't sense that you're so distressed."

My brother's chances of survival were incredibly slim and yet to my mother's credit she prayed and prayed for his life, for that, I have the most amazing gratitude. My pops also agrees that it is thanks to Mum, that my brother is alive today - a friend I know I will have for life.

A pretty amazing woman if you ask me and an honour to share my life with.