Maria Antonia Romero

Maria Antonia Romero

November 10 1938 - April 14 2022

In death I am reminded of the words of novelist Terry Pratchett

“It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.”

This is a difficult task, speaking on behalf of a loved one who has passed. How do you summarize life? How do you encapsulate all of the complexities of what each of us have to endure into a few simple words? I’ve chosen two words to focus on Love and Strength, because Maria Antonia, our Nana, knew how to love and knew how to be strong.

Nana lived a long life and as such she has touched so many people. Many of those people are here today, many more are spread across Mexico and across the United States. She has meant and continues to mean so much too so many of us. She has been known to be many things. But first and foremost she was Mom. She took on so much sacrifice and endured so much hardship for that role. She moved further and further from home, her home, her family's home, where she knew safety, where she knew childhood. She moved to follow her one and only love. Her husband and the father of her 5 children.

She moved away from her own roots to do just that, establish new roots. In that she built a family. A family in every sense of the word. We as her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren never met Nana the child or teenager or even the young adult, but all of us were loved by and loved her as Mother, as Grandmother. She would go on to live a life in a single purpose. She not only understood her role but embraced it. Her role as the wife of my grandfather and the mother to the children she raised was unwavering. That same dedication guided her as she helped raise the children of her children.

Here we must remind ourselves of how she touched our lives. As I look around I see her face, I see her loving touch, I see her guiding words in each and every person here. She raised 3 amazing daughters and 2 amazing sons. Amazing…imperfect, but still amazing all the same.

Her daughters Annabell, Marisol, and Lourdes would go on to become three outstanding and caring women. Each showing the same resolve and dedication that was imparted onto them by their mother. She taught them how to be a woman and they learned well. She showed them how to love and they continue to love. She showed them how to be strong...strong headed and strong willed and they each resonate strength.

Her sons Fernando and Mario would each become great men. Though it was not easy she helped temper them, and helped guide them. She balanced the strict and stern nature of my grandfather with love and compassion. While she was no push over, she did understand that her sons, like her daughters, needed love and care too.

And while Annabell is no longer with us here and now, she along with her siblings Marisol, Lourdes, Mario and Fernando are as much like her as they are like their father.

My grandmother together with my grandfather made such a beautiful family and raised such strong and loving children. Strength that they still carry with them today.

During her time here on earth Annabell was a rock, she was big sis and played mom to so many of us. She managed to help raise nearly every child she met, through her work, amongst her siblings, and with the children of her siblings. She was a mother to me, she was a mother to us all.

Marisol is one of the most loving and attentive parents to a child who could not survive without her care and compassion. This could not have been easy throughout the many years she has been mother to Kimberly. She struggled day and night and continues to sacrifice because of the love she has for Kimberly. She continued to care for her daughter even while taking care of her ill and ailing big sister during her last months on this earth. This is a testament to her strength.

Lourdes would live a life in a career as grueling as they come. Dealing with pain and suffering, sleepless nights, caring for the sick and dying, seeing death and loss. She managed her career while continuing to be a figure within her family. She sacrificed so much but never at the expense of her family. Her continued dedication to her patients and her family at large is proof of her strength.

Mario has become an outstanding father and a loving grandfather. He has raised 3 beautiful daughters of his own who in-turn have each raised their own amazing families full of love and care. He has worked tirelessly to provide, working hard both professionally and in his role as father and grandfather. His hard work definitely shows up top around the hair department, but this is his banner of strength.

Fernando, My loving father. Raised two, and I might be a little bias here, perfect sons. Throughout my life I have known my dad to be two things: strict and almost fair. I am witness to his utmost dedication to his family. His work ethic is second to none, except maybe my own. He has been and continues to be driven, not by success or riches, but by duty. He has always seen his duty as a father and a provider. My brother and I are both his witness and the proof of his strength.

A person who may not have been her daughter, but was loved by her and loved Nana all the same is Luly. Over the course of 5 years she came to mean the world to Nana. Luly took care of Nana, looking after her every need from before sunrise to long after sunset. Looking after my grandmother was no easy task, yet Luly endured, late nights with a restless sleeper, early mornings with an overly paranoid and forgetful crazy lady; yet she still endured. Never succumbing to anger and only showing Nana Love and Compassion, Care and Understanding. She was the only one strong enough to live in the same house as my grandmother and for that I am forever grateful.

I, as some of you may or may not know, have spent my adult life, until recently, in service to country. I have been to war and have grown accustomed to death and destruction. I know all too well hardship and suffering. In my years of heartache and suffering I never once became incapable of love or caring. I stand today as the man I am because of the man my father is. In that light I see my grandmother in me. My strength, the strength that guided me through the darkest of hours, through nights of no sleep, and countless days of no light, the strength that carried me came from this family; it came from my grandmother and is something I hope to continue with my son and my daughter.

This family owes its strength, owes its love, owes its compassion to the women we lay to rest here today. I ask that each of you look onto yourself and see the many wonderful ways that her presence in our lives and in the lives of the ones we love has shaped us. See her guiding hand in our actions and in the actions of the ones we love. Know that she has always been present and will long after today continue to be present. For as long as each of us knows love we know her.

Understand that the ways each of us love and the way each of us are loved is our homage to her, our testament to her. Through love is how we will honor Maria Antonia Romero.