About a month ago a dear friend of mine, Sarah, was having surgery. On the morning of the surgery I went to Mass and offered my communion up for her, but I felt a tugging in my heart to go and be with her. I drove directly to Kaiser Hospital in Anaheim, parked God knows where and went up to the surgery floor. I could not find where Sarah was, so I called Jason, Sarah’s husband, who told me to meet him in the cafeteria. I was on  the second  floor with a clear view of the cafeteria, but I did not see Jason. I called him again only to find out I was at the wrong Kaiser Hospital. Sarah was at the Kaiser is Irvine, about half an hour away. I went home, had my coffee and Ezekiel toast, and then drove to Irvine.

Using the GPS on my phone, I typed in the address. The direction instructed me to exit on a toll road. I was not going to fall into that trap because I do not have the proper tags to use the toll road and did not want to pay any fees. I exited on the next street, which is a really crazy busy boulevard, leading to the Irvine Spectrum. I started to pray because as the GPS was rerouting, I had to made a huge decision as to which of the five lanes to take. I was a little preoccupied with making sure to turn in the right direction when a motorcycle police officer flashed his light on me.  The officer and I went through the usual formalities, then he left my presence for a few minutes. When he returned, I was surprised that he had a really long ticket for me. “Why are you giving me a ticket?” I asked. In a stoic voice, the officer answered, “I almost hit your vehicle because of your sudden stop.”  “So you’re giving me a ticket? I was stopped because I was allowing the pedestrians to pass.”  Officer: “If you were turning, your wheels were not indicating that, and you were not completely in the turning lane.”  I asked him if he knew how much the ticket was going to cost me; he answered $200. The unfriendly officer suggested I attend traffic school. The last time I got a ticket was over 25 years ago.

I finally arrived at the right hospital and was able to pray for my friend before her surgery.  The Devil is always up in my business; my attacks come in unexpected ways to discourage my walk. I was upset about the distraction, but I put my emotions on pause to do what God asked of me. I stayed with Jason until Sarah was out of surgery.

It was a beautiful day, and as I exited the revolving doors of the hospital I took a deep breath and thanked God for Sarah’s successful surgery. Then I remembered the stupid ticket.

My husband never accepts this type of news well, so I was going to spare him, and not tell him… yet. The week before, a back part my front tooth had fallen out, and my other tooth needed redoing as well. This expense was well into the thousands, so we were just getting over the shock of  the unexpected expenditure, right before our trip to Europe.  To add this ticket to the pile was just going to be another week of Mike reminding me not to use the credits cards.

Before I told Mike about the citation, I wanted to get the ticket in my hands and investigate the full cost. About a week later the ticket arrived in the mail. Mike was out of town and I had gone to lunch with my friend Helen. As we turned the corner to my house, Mike’s car was in the driveway; he arrived earlier than expected. Well, what happened next is what God always does to me  in His humor.  Mike had the mail in his hands when I walked in. I felt like that character in the movie “The Color Purple” asking Mike, “Did anything come for me?” Much to my surprise, Mike handed me  the odd -sized envelope with the citation.

I opened the mail only to discover that the citation was closer to $300. I quietly left the room with the biggest pit in my stomach. I called for more information; aside from the ticket, there were court fees, and let’s not forget about the traffic school charges. I walked back into the room and told Mike. He exclaimed,”I just got the bill for the dental work, and now this!”  I was brave and answered “Yeah, but it really wasn’t my fault!” I was lying, and I knew it was all my fault. Finally the air cleared, and the conversation turned to, “Please do not use the credit cards until I can knock them down, especially,  TJ Maxx!” I could live with that.

I need to go back to my youth to explain why I operate like this. I have this innate fear of approaching these delicate matters. It was instilled into me by  my mother. When a young man would ask me out on a date, I would inform my mom early in the week, and she would say, “It’s Monday, and too early to ask if you can go out.” So when Thursday rolled around, I’d asked again, and her answers would be, “Why are you asking at the last minute? You should not go out with boys if they ask you out a day before!” My mother’s ambiguous reply scarred me. This went on most of my dating years, so this fear has transcended into my adult life. My daughter Sonja said that I reacted the same way with her. Sonja claims that when she was invited to sleepovers, I told her she was too young, and when she got older she claims that I told her she was too old.

So now I’m almost done with my online traffic school, instead of the 6 hours, it has taken me over 9 hours. The good news is that I’ve become a better driver, because I never want to get another ticket again, and the next time I’m taking to toll road.

My niece Leah is employed by an upscale eye institute in Arizona, where she has worked her way up to the position of surgical technician.  Leah is always checking our eyes for any sign of cataracts, glaucoma, and/or macular degeneration. During her visit in February, when I caught her staring at me during breakfast.

“What are you staring at?” I asked. Leah said “ You need cataract surgery.” Then she added, “Your skin is really hooded over your eyes.”

At this point I got up from the table with mixed emotions. Was Leah insulting me or being helpful? Leah later explained that I should make an appointment with the specialist about the cataracts surgery and see if I was a candidate for the eyelid procedure.

Since I was planning a trip to Arizona to get my eyes examined for glasses,  I went ahead and made an appointment for the examination to see if I really needed cataract surgery. It turned out that I did not.

The morning of my eye examination I told Leah, “You better make sure I can see the specialist about the hooding over my eyes.” Leah chuckled sarcastically and said, “That’s impossible. He is booked months in advance!” Under my breath I said, “I will see him today.”

Leah did the full medical eye examination. When we were done, I asked Leah about the ophthalmologist to examine   my hooded eyes. Leah rolled her eyes and said, “He’s too busy!” I asked her to please check. Thanks to Leah, the kind doctor agreed to see me. He examined my eyelids and said, “You really do have a lot of excess skin, but we need to do some testing to see if you are a candidate for the operation,” as this was considered a medical procedure.

Another two weeks passed, and I was back in Arizona for the testing. The excess skin was causing problems with my peripheral vision, so and after the examination I was cleared for surgery.

I told my family about the this, and shared the news with a few friends. They all responded, “So you’re having an eye lift.” It was useless to try to explain: first it was not my idea, and second, the blepharoplasty was performed by an ophthalmologist rather than a plastic  surgeon. I told my prayer group and they, too, thought the surgery was a cosmetic procedure. When they prayed for me, one of the men kiddingly said, “Lord, make Lynda young and beautiful.” Everyone broke out in loud laughter, including me.

On the morning of the surgery all was normal, and it was time to get the anesthesia. A kind  nurse found a weak vein on my right arm for the sedation. The anesthesiologist came to explain that after the arm IV, he would follow with injecting the outer parts of my eyes. By this time both of my eyes were covered. They put some type of tape around my face and over my mouth; it was definitely sticky, and resembled the blue tape used by painters.

I could still speak, but my words were a little muffled. I asked the doctor if we could pray, and he sweetly agreed.  “Dear Lord, guide his hands through this surgery, that all goes well and that no infection sets in.” With that I was out… well sort of.

During the procedure I could hear talking.  I heard the sound as the skin was being cut around my eyes; it was an unusual sensation. While I was being patched back together, I could hear the needle penetrating through my skin and I heard the thread moving through the sewing motion.

Immediately after surgery, some type of heavy  ointment was put into my eyes, causing extremely blurred vision. I was put in a chair that reminded me of a folding lawn chair, but I was coiled up in it like a groggy contortionist folded into a small package. I could hear the soothing voice of Andrea Bocelli playing in the background, so I felt that this was a confirmation that all went well.

Leah warned me about the bruising, and that it was going to look really bad, but I told her, “Leah, it’s not going to be that way for me.” Leah’s response was, “OK, I do this for a living, and you are going to be really bruised up.” Surprisingly, the bruising around my eyes was very minimal.

The doctor’s instructions were to take Tylenol because  after the anesthesia wore off the pain would set in. I never once felt an ounce of pain, not once!

I returned to church the following Sunday,and wearing my regular glasses, it just looked like I had a little too much smoky eye shadow going on. There were no double takes from anyone.

The only thing I could not do was shampoo my hair because I could not wet the sutures. Misty, my hairdresser, came by a few days after the surgery to wash my hair. I had to bribe my granddaughter into shampooing my hair. She agreed, but only if I wore sunglasses.

I am not a vain person, and I never gave my hooded eyelids a second thought. To me it was just part of aging gracefully. Since I had never even googled this procedure, I’ve come to the conclusion that this surgery was a special gift from God.

Mike and I had breakfast with Father Leonard Mary, from EWTN, this past Saturday. As we were sitting in the quaint Mexican restaurant in East LA, there was a gathering of MECHA members right outside the door.  The brown berets, the vest with special patches, the greeting with a fist pound brought me back to the feelings of my lost youth when I was president of MECHA.  I wanted to go out there and witness to them that God was the only answer. But I doubted that the fist-popping group would listen to anything I had to say. I wanted to yell, “Run! Don’t do it!” But they will have to figure this out for themselves.

Father Leonard quickly reminded me of the Blog I wrote about wanting my kids to marry Mexicans.

Just in case you missed it:

Having completed all relevant  courses at the Orange Diocese, I am now authorized to  minister under the covering of the Catholic Church. My last class, Pastoral Formation, helps develop attitudes and skills that pertain to effective ministry. The class is intended to train the student on how to handle matters that involve different races, cultures and ethnicities, and the differences on how people deal with situations. We all believe in the same God within the Catholic church, but people from Italy do not think the same as people from Mexico. We covered many subjects, but when it came to culture and heritage, my mind was flooded with the memories of raising two Mexican-American kids in Orange County.

When Mikos and Sonja (our children) were growing up, I did my very best to see that they stayed true to their Mexican culture. When after-school Spanish classes were offered in elementary school, I signed them up. They both complained about the instructor, and the only thing that they remembered about the experience was the title of the book “Churros y Chocolate.” I tried speaking to them in Spanish at home, but that too was ignored. Mikos recently asked me why I didn’t teach him Spanish!

When Sonja wanted tap and ballet classes with her little non-Hispanic friends, I signed her up for Ballet Folklorico. I had to drive clear across town to Santa Ana for her lessons, which didn’t matter because she was going to  be grafted into her “Mexican culture.” Sonja complained about the shoes, the extra-wide skirt, and the fact that none of her friends were taking the same dance lessons. Sonja’s experience was more traumatic than enjoyable, and after the only recital, Sonja hung up her dancing shoes for a while.

Mikos did not escape the culture wrath either. That boy was going to marry a Mexican if it was the last thing that he was going to do.

When we moved to Orange, our neighborhood was mostly white, and we had two personalized license plates on our vehicles. “FAMILIA” was  on my Volvo station wagon and “CIRIZA” was on Mike’s Porsche. When we lived in the San Fernando Valley, this personalized license plate thing was no big deal, but in Orange County it was considered uncool.

The demographics of a mostly white school changed the direction of my plans for my children. I still had a little of that “Chicano Power” residue from my MECHA  days. MECHA was to Mexicans what the  Black Panthers were to the Blacks. I felt that in some way, I was melting into the Orange County stew. The more I tried to mold my kids, the more rebellion set in. “You are going to marry a Mexican!” were my words of love and direction…I so foolishly believed.

At that time in my life, I had left the Catholic church and was vacillating from Calvary Chapel, to Calvary Church, to The Vineyard and a host of other Christian churches. God must have gotten a good laugh at all the mindless efforts to keep culture alive in the “Familia Ciriza.”

Both Mikos and Sonja married out of our race. It was not to spite me, but rather because they fell in love. It was never my responsibility to choose their mates; this was just another ridiculous episode of a mother meddling into the path the God had already planned.

Mikos and Sonja both married Minnesotans, and every other Christmas, they return to their families and every summer they are in Minnesota.

I leave you with this thought. As mothers, all we can do is pray that God will bring the right helpmate for our children. We cannot control the hand of God, and if we intervene, we are messing with God’s perfect plan. Believe me, I understand how challenging it is not meddle,  trust God and He will see you through this. Remember St. Monica prayed over 30 years for her son St. Augustine to change. There is nothing stronger than the prayers of a mother.

Genesis 2:18  Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”