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This is Y, Mount Dora, FL (2026)

07/11/2026

The Plate

He was at an open-air
restaurant
in a plaza
in Puerto Rico.

Someone walked in.

By Papi’s account,
he may have been homeless.

He had a look.

He was hungry.

He asked
for a bite of food.

The man behind the counter
was irritated-
offended that someone
who had nothing
would dare to ask
for something.

Eventually,
he relented.

“Hártate,”
he said.

Stuff yourself.

The plate was dropped
onto the table,
rice and beans
slopped across it
as though the man
desperate enough
to set aside his pride
was serving a sentence
for the crime
of being poor.

And hungry.

He was hungry.

There was food.

This happened
years before I was born.

But I was there.

I’m there now.

I see the steel plate.

I hear it strike the table
harder than necessary.

I watch dignity
slide with the red beans.

A couple,
busy with each other,
never looks up.

A few men chuckle.

One nods approvingly
at the server.

Another man,
sitting alone,
keeps his eyes
on his own plate,
afraid that kindness
might make him
the next target.

And you’re there too.

Standing against
the fading blue wall.

The air
barely breathes.

Cruelty
isn’t always loud.

Sometimes
it is only a plate
set down
without love.

Sometimes
it is enough
to feed a man
and still leave him
starving
for kindness.

Papi told me this story
more than once.

Each telling
settled deeper
into the hollows
of my soul.

Papi
carried that plate
for years.

One day,
without realizing it,
he placed it
in my hands.

And once you’ve witnessed it-

even secondhand-

you never really
leave that table.

05/13/2026

You arrived the day after Mother’s Day-
as if you let that sacred day pass first,
so you wouldn’t steal its spotlight.
Even then,
you made room for others.

When you were about a year and a half,
I placed you on my shoulders-
small hands lifted, waving goodbye-
as I sang,
the most beautiful girl in the world.

Even then,
you never let the world define your beauty.
Yours arrived gently-
without apology,
without explanation.

When Peter came into our lives,
you declared,
“It’s what Mama says.”

And the years-
they stretched you-
your legs, your reach, your soul.

And just like that-
a woman.

Not painted in expectation,
not softened for approval.
You chose your own path-
different,
difficult,
yours.

Sneaker-clad feet
pressing forward,
again and again-
until they stood firm
in places that require courage.

You became one who keeps watch,
who stands between harm and the vulnerable,
who walks into the hard places
with steady breath
and an unshaken center.

And though you laugh about middle age,
the girl I see
is still the one
on my shoulders-
held high above the ordinary-
while I sang a song
that never stopped being true:

the most beautiful girl in the world.

Then.
Now.

And I hope when you stand before the mirror
there is a quiet knowing

a comfort in your own skin,
a recognition
that you are more
than what the world can measure.

You belong to God-
and to me.

And somewhere, still,
soft as a memory,
sure as truth-

it’s what Mama says.

Happy birthday, darling.
I love you.

05/09/2026

The First Language

Before she learned
how to read a room,
how to carry disappointment
without dropping it on the floor,
how to smile politely
through exhaustion-

she learned me.

My face.
My voice.
The geography of my hands.

And I learned her too:

the tiny weight of trust
resting against my shoulder,
the sacred interruption
of a small hand on my cheek,
as if love itself
needed proof
I was still there.

Motherhood did not arrive
like thunder.

It arrived softly-

with sleepless nights,
warm milk,
sticky fingers,
small shoes by the door,
and the quiet realization
that my heart
had begun walking around
outside my body.

There were days
I feared I was failing.

Days I gave her
the tired version of myself,
the unfinished version,
the woman still healing
while teaching another human
how to feel safe in the world.

But children do not ask
for perfection.

They ask for presence.

For eyes that soften
when they enter the room.

For arms that stay open
even after difficult days.

For love that keeps showing up
wearing ordinary clothes.

And one day,
without noticing when it happened,

the little girl
holding my face
became the reason
mine learned how to shine again.

Happy Mother’s Day
to the women who mothered
through tenderness,
through sacrifice,
through quiet perseverance-

and also to the mothers
who carried too much.

The ones who worked two jobs
and came home already exhausted.
The ones who parented alone
while pretending not to be afraid.
The ones who stretched dinner,
paychecks, patience, and sleep
further than seemed possible.

To the mothers
who sometimes yelled louder
than they meant to,
who lost their tempers
under the weight of survival,
then lay awake replaying it
with regret.

To the women
who loved deeply
even when life
did not leave them much room
to soften.

May you know this:

children remember more
than the hard moments.

They remember
who stayed.

Who kept showing up.
Who kept trying.
Who kept loving them
with tired hands
and overworked hearts.

And sometimes,
that kind of love
is its own quiet miracle.

04/25/2026

Sharp and Steady

The ocean’s
waves break
the blues and deep darkness
with impossible pearls
of water.

Below,
the world curls
and crashes-
restless with wanting,
with worry,
with all that refuses
to be still.

But the white
bearded mountain
does not bend itself
into the sea’s longing.

It does not question
why it cannot be
like the restless curls below
or the flat canvas above,
painted in threads
of light
and moody shadows.

It is not threatened
when clouds skirt
around its
sharp
and steady head.

It has learned
what women learn
after storms-

that not every wave
must be followed,
not every darkness
entered,
not every fear
deserves a home.

Some things
are meant to move.

Some things
are meant to pass.

And some things-
like the heart
that has survived-
are meant
to be

Still.

Painted on a 16x20 canvas board in oil. Inspired by the artist’s creation at Paint With Josh

04/17/2026

The See in Her Heart

Before her,
water rises in fierce blue spirals,
the shape of her thoughts-

worry curling into prayer,
fear breaking into hope.

Yet beyond the unrest,
the horizon remains-

a line of promise
the storm cannot erase.

04/12/2026

If I’m honest-
this never crossed my mind.

That I live
somewhere
in the back rooms
of people.

Not large-
not important-
just… there.

A tone I used.
A look I didn’t soften.
A word that stayed longer
than I meant it to.

What have I sounded like
to the breaking places in others?

Was I weight
when they were already sinking?

Was I sharp
when they were barely holding shape?

I don’t remember
half the moments
that might have marked them-

but they might.

They might.

Who carries me
as a flinch?

Who hears my voice
and tightens-

just a little?

And who-
by mercy I don’t deserve-
remembers warmth?

I don’t want to move through lives
unaware of the bruising.

I don’t want to be careless
with something as permanent
as memory.

Lord-

teach my mouth
to hesitate
before it harms.

Teach my presence
to feel
like rest-

not something
to recover from.

Because somewhere,
I am already
a memory-

and I may not like
the way I live there.

04/05/2026

What the Tomb Knows
Defeat, Undone

I am a rock
cut to hold
what life cannot keep.

A chamber—
hollowed,
waiting,
dark.

A bench
to lift the still
from the dust.

They laid Him down.

And there was
silence-

ancient
and new,
brilliant
and hidden,
near-
and not yet revealed.

I knew
how to keep.
I knew
how to hold.

I have held kings.
Prophets.
The unnamed.

All of them
stayed.

Until-

a rumble
not of earth,
but of
Holy breaking-

where breath
meets light.

The stone

did not roll
as men command-

it yielded.

And then-

He stood.

He left.

Cloth
and linen-
loosened,
folded
with a care
I had never known-

as though
hands
unwound death
without haste.

And I-
made of stone,
made
to contain-

could not keep
His body.

And yet-

His presence
remains.

YCH

This is Y

07/11/2026

05/13/2026

05/09/2026

04/25/2026

04/17/2026

04/12/2026

04/05/2026

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