Honoring Mom on Mother’s Day

By Tommy Acosta

On September 7, 2021, my beautiful Mamasita, Aida, passed away peacefully at the age of 93.

She loved Sedona and so many people here loved her as well. Charming, sweet, kind, engaging and loving, always poised and impeccably made up and dressed, blinged  to the max, everyone immediately fell in love with her. She truly was a class-act lady. And carried herself with the dignity of  a true Queen.

Her strength of will was indomitable and she taught me to never give up, no matter what, no matter the hopelessness of any situation.

When I was eight years old, the doctors paralyzed me while performing a spinal tap.

I remember lying in bed at the hospital, not able to move any part of my body, my legs and arms useless.

I overheard her talking to the doctors. They were telling her I would never walk again and blaming their error on something else.

I will never forget how she screamed into their faces, a terrible scream so loud the room vibrated and the doctors cringed and ran for cover. “You are wrong,” she yelled. “My son will walk again. Never say those words again to me or to my son. He will walk no matter what you say. He will walk!”

She never left my side while I was in the hospital. She had her mother, grandma Mimi, move into our house to take care of my sister Ida.  She dedicated her life to me, always encouraging and always calming my fears, insisting the doctors were wrong and that I would walk again.

She was right. I walked out of that hospital only three months after being admitted, holding my mother’s hand. The nurses called me the “Miracle Boy.”

Right after I was released from the hospital she made me walk to school rather than drive me. If I would fall, she would make me get right up and keep walking.

And while I healed, she made sure I participated in team sports while growing up.

I learned to run again, play ball and engage in strenuous physical activities.

She blanketed me with her love. And I grew strong and healthy. Excelled in sports, boxed and trained, and learned to play guitar and write songs.

I love this photo of her above. She was 16 years old at the time it was taken.There is this faraway look in her eye. I think this photo was taken when she was 16.  Her beauty never diminished.

I feel her presence all the time. She is watching over me, her children and grandchildren.

I want to believe that one day death will bring us together again. That the stories of an afterlife are true.

A bit of synchronicity. My mother passed on her own mother’s birthday. As if my grandmother Mimi came down from Heaven to bring her daughter back home.

On her every birthday while growing up I would write her a little poem.

This Mother’s DayI want to dedicate this song written by my great friend Gerry Savage when his own mother passed away, performed by me, my friend Amy Andelora and the late Michael Savage.

I think it sums up just how deep we all loved her. and for anyone eele who has lost a loved one.