Maria del Consuelo Rivera

My hero is my mother, Maria Del Consuelo Rivera. She was born in Leon Guanajuato, Mexico. My mother was sixth out of the twelve children that my grandmother Esperanza had. She was a joyful child and remembers no distress in her childhood at all. Of her childhood she would tell us how happy she was and how much fun she used to have being with her siblings. My mother came from a poor family; both her parents worked hard but still could barely make ends meet. Wanting to help her parents, she started working when she was thirteen in factories.

At the age of fifteen, my mother ran away from home and married my father, Arturo. She was away from home for two years in which she had her first two children, Rosa and Antonio. Arturo heard life in the U.S.A was better than the hard life in Mexico, and he wanted a taste of American life. He ended up dragging my mother away from her family and into America. They found out the hard way that life in America was not as easy as people would say, especially in the beginning.

When they first arrived to Mission, Texas, Arturo and my mother built their own home all by themselves, with the help of Arturo’s cousins. It was not the best place to live but it had to do. During the twelve years they lived in Texas, they had five more children, Teresa, Catalina, Virginia, Elia and me. Living with Arturo at this time was not going so good for my mother. He was cold and uncaring to his whole family. My mother had nowhere to go with her seven children, so she put up with Arturo's abuse. She was scared of what would happen if she were all alone with her children and did not want them to suffer any consequences that might come from this.

Arturo and my mother moved up further north to Minnesota and they had the last two children Junior and Rodrigo. Life was harsh for my mother; she would work very late hours in factories. At times Arturo would not work so my mother would have to work much more than she already did. After work, my mother would come home to tend to the house, her children and her demanding husband. Though life was not going great she would not show how it hurt her to keep it from affecting us.

One day my mother had a very bad car accident. She was in the hospital for two weeks. Doctors told us that it was a miracle that she was alive. That night my mother told us she knew she had to hold on for us. After getting out of the hospital my mother, ignoring our concerns, went straight back to working. The accident turned my mother’s life around though. Shortly after the accident, my mother separated from Arturo and moved the remaining four of us away to start a new life. My older siblings had their own families at the time and they helped my mother start her new life.

She is very happy now. You can tell by the beautiful smile she gives you when you ask her how she is doing. My mother went through so many obstacles in her life just to bring her children ahead. She did not give up a harsh life because she knew we needed her. She does not have super powers, and she did not save anybody’s life, she just took good care of her nine children and was the best mother she could be. To me she does not need to have super powers or be a lifesaver to be a hero. That is why my mother is my hero.