Hope Comes to Visit
Hope Comes to Visit is a soulful podcast that holds space for real stories, honest conversations, and the kind of moments that remind us we’re never alone.
Hosted by author, speaker, and former TV journalist-turned-storyteller Danielle Elliott Smith, the show explores the full spectrum of the human experience — from the tender to the triumphant. Through powerful interviews and reflective storytelling, each episode offers light, connection, and presence for anyone navigating the in-between.
Whether you’re grieving, growing, beginning again, or simply craving something real, Hope Comes to Visit will meet you right where you are — with warmth, grace, and the quiet belief that even in the dark, transformation can take root.
New episodes drop every Monday and Friday, so you can begin and end your week with a little light, reflection, and hope.
Hope Comes to Visit
The Gifts Hidden in Life’s Hardest Seasons: Maria De Los Angeles on Caregiving, Cancer, and Midlife Transformation
What if the most difficult chapters of your life were actually preparing you for unexpected gifts?
In this moving episode of Hope Comes to Visit, award-winning writer Maria de los Angeles shares how caring for her parents with Alzheimer’s taught her the very resilience, humility, and compassion she would later need to face her own esophageal cancer diagnosis.
Maria speaks candidly about the sacred and heartbreaking realities of caregiving — from changing her parents’ diapers to sitting with the grief of loss. “It was the most beautiful and hardest thing I would ever do,” she reflects, opening a window of wisdom for anyone navigating elder care.
Her journey also weaves through sobriety, relapse, and return to recovery — revealing how healing is rarely linear, but always worth it. And even in the midst of cancer treatment, Maria carries astonishing perspective: “I am not the symptom,” she says, describing how she talks to her tumor and continues to find moments of joy.
Perhaps most inspiring is Maria’s embrace of midlife transformation. “Menopause was the best thing that ever happened to me,” she declares. For her, the fifties have become a season of unapologetic honesty and fierce clarity about what matters most.
This conversation culminates with Maria reading her breathtaking poem “Spoonfuls,” a tender reflection on feeding her mother during her final days — a moment that crystallizes the circular nature of care and the hidden gifts within life’s hardest seasons.
Connect with Maria on her newsletter - https://www.heartcenteredliving.news/newsletter
And everywhere else you can find her.
You can also support Maria in her cancer journey here.
Thank you for listening to Hope Comes to Visit. If this episode resonated with you, please follow, rate, and share the show — it helps others find their way to these conversations.
New episodes drop every Monday and Friday, so you can begin and end your week with a little light and a lot of hope.
For more stories, reflections, and ways to connect, visit www.DanielleElliottSmith.com or follow along on Instagram @daniellesmithtv and @HopeComestoVisit
Menopause was the best thing that ever happened to me. But in addition to the physical changes, that I most welcome actually, it's the ability to still be in your prime, because this isn't our grandmother's menopause, you know no, it's not and still be filled with curiosity and wonder and, you know, still be sassy and sexy and funny. And my parishioner friend was right your life does not start until you're 50.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Hope Comes to Visit a place for soft landings, soul, truth and the unedited middle. I'm Danielle Elliott Smith and today's episode is an invitation into a tender, transformative conversation with a beautiful soul. Maria de los Angeles is an award-winning writer and journalist. She is also the publisher of the Heart Centered Living newsletter, a curated collection of news stories, resources and delightful curiosities that inspire action and contemplation. A monthly newsletter, heart Centered Living, opens the door to a wide range of topics for the practical mystic or anyone longing for grounded spirituality.
Speaker 2:Born in Puerto Rico, to Cuban refugees, maria was raised in South Florida and lived in Washington DC before leaving the US in January 2025. She is currently writing a new life chapter in her ancestral homeland, northern Spain. Let's take a quick moment to thank the people that support and sponsor the podcast. When life takes an unexpected turn, you deserve someone who will stand beside you. St Louis attorney Chris Jey offers experienced one-on-one legal defense. Call 314-384-4000 or 314-DUI-HELP, or you can visit DulleyLawFirmcom that's D-U-L-L-E-LawFirmcom for a free consultation. Maria, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:It's such a delight to be here with you today.
Speaker 2:I am so excited to dive into your story because there are so many pieces of it that I truly believe are going to resonate with our audience. So I want to start one of the things when you, when you and I were first messaging and writing back and forth, I know that one of the pieces that first connected with me was that you were, that you have, that you took care of your, your parents. Um just moved my dad from Florida to the St Louis area, and I am in that stage where I've stopped having to actively take care of young children and am now making sure that that my dad is okay. You mentioned that your parents had Alzheimer's. Yes, let's talk a little bit about that piece of your journey.
Speaker 1:Well, I like to say that it was the most beautiful and hardest thing I would ever do in my life. Of course, now I have a cancer diagnosis, so life is upping the challenge, but I can tell you this and I promise to get back to that later that that prepared me for today. And why? Because it really was incredibly humbling to change your parents' diapers. Humbling to change your parents' diapers and to confront death and to see the life cycle come to an end. It was really really scary at the time, but it broke open my heart in such a way to let so much love in, which is something that I hadn't experienced before to let so much love in, which is something that I hadn't experienced before Now.
Speaker 2:we mentioned in the intro that your parents were Cuban refugees, right so where were you raised? I was raised in Miami, in South Florida, in the exile community of Cuba? Okay, and so your parents? How long ago was it that you were taking care of them? And they both had Alzheimer's.
Speaker 1:Well, they were on the spectrum of memory disorder. So my mom had full blown Alzheimer's, my father had vascular dementia, and I just sometimes say Alzheimer's for simplicity.
Speaker 2:Of course.
Speaker 1:Different types of memory loss, different types of bodily loss function, et cetera, different needs, and so that was around the mid-aughts to 2017 or so.
Speaker 2:Okay, and so you took care of both of them.
Speaker 1:Yes For the most part.
Speaker 2:Yes For the most part yes, I know that my grandmother had Alzheimer's and that was my first encounter with it and it was interesting to me to watch her. Revert was the best way I could describe it. She went from. She would lose her most recent memories, like the first thing she forgot was that I had kids, and then she forgot that I was married and then she lost my brother and I, and then my dad was in her mind a young man and then a toddler Did that. Was that experience similar for you?
Speaker 1:Yes, and there was one pivotal moment which had to do more with the present. I wrote a poem about this the moment where my mom put dish soap into the frying pan instead of oil, really, and that changed everything. And then in this poem I talk about what it was like to feed her and she could no longer feed herself and I became a mother to my mother, and then she was nonverbal. The points of nonrecognition when they did happen, at least my parents weren't aggressive, they wouldn't sum down, which is another thing that I'm grateful for. But it really brought to mind how we take story for granted and how our memories shape who we are and how it all just dissipates. It's that scaffolding of life that suddenly goes away, and imagine how bewildering that is. What a beautiful phrase. Scaffolding of life that suddenly goes away, and imagine how bewildering that is.
Speaker 2:What a beautiful phrase scaffolding of life. I don't know if you have the poem handy or if you're willing to share it, but I'm always, always open to Maybe towards the end. Okay, absolutely, I'm always open to that level of storytelling and beauty. Storytelling and beauty what? How would you describe that experience of taking care of your, your parents?
Speaker 1:I'm not gonna lie, it sucked and I hated it and I loved it at the same time Really Both things. And you can do hard things that I never thought I could do. Now I didn't have kids, but I ended up having my parents and so I had to improvise. Nobody teaches you this right. When you have a baby, you prepare for nine months and you read the books and you get a baby shower. Nobody does that for the caregiver the adult caregiver of elderly parents, and so I became the medical manager. I mean, it started very gradually like take them to doctor's appointments, but then I had to advocate and take notes. Managing their pills, which changed dosage constantly, was a part time job, I kid you not. I practically lived at CVS.
Speaker 2:I can't even imagine.
Speaker 1:Yes, and hearing the music was very triggering. Years later, when I had to do that, I said I forgot about this. It sounded like Liberace. It was really off brand, but anyway it's what you hear in your nightmares.
Speaker 2:now, cvs is hold music.
Speaker 1:And all the hospitalizations and triages. I mean, my nervous system was constantly up here, I had adrenal, my adrenals were just flying around and that went on for a few years and I broke the number one rule of caregiving, which is take care of yourself first.
Speaker 2:I just didn't know better. Okay, so is. Was there anyone around to remind you to take care of you, or did you feel isolated?
Speaker 1:I did feel somewhat isolated. I did have friends who did like would go grocery shopping for me. My sisters would come in sometimes and help, but I was largely in charge of a lot of this day-to-day stuff that can be very onerous. It's like being a single mom. I'm not saying they didn't help, that's not fair to say but I was micromanaging everything and micro-advocating everything. Especially with senior care in the US I learned some really ugly things about the system over there that made me ashamed to be human and the things that I saw in nursing homes and the lack of regulation or too much regulation. I mean it was horrifying that I described it as a house of horrors to see elderly people abandoned like that. Just um, but I I mean I did have some support. I also didn't know what to ask for.
Speaker 2:That's a really important point. So is there a recommendation that you would make? So if someone is going through this right now, if I am heading in that direction now, what do I ask for?
Speaker 1:Well, you know, now there's many more resources. I think it also kind of blew up when I first started. I think it was caregivingorg on Twitter. You know that was sending out stuff, and now there's many more caregiver resources websites. There's more awareness.
Speaker 1:And I think my biggest piece of advice is if you have parents and this is not a fun thing to say, but you can't abort your parents. You can't not have parents, I mean, unless you break up with them, you know. And so families really need to plan early on what it's going to be like later for a worst case scenario. If it doesn't happen, great, but who's going to commit to taking them to the doctor? It's family planning, but it's not about having babies. So, preparing ahead of time, downsizing your parents' home, moving them close to you if you need to, taking dad's car keys away, I mean all of these things you have to prepare for, and I'm not saying you'll be ready when you get there, but at least you'll know they're coming. And then you know there's more. I can't name them specifically right now but, for example, alzheimersorg, caregiverorg, your local state or local government Actually there is to date that I know of they will pay adult children to take care of their parents. There's just some paperwork involved, which.
Speaker 1:I didn't know about at the time. I didn't know if Florida had that. That would have been really helpful because I had to put my life on hold.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting. That feels like something that either I should be researching now or that we should certainly recommend.
Speaker 1:And long-term health care insurance for whatever Medicare or Medicaid won't cover for the nursing homes, which are ridiculous, very expensive.
Speaker 2:Very, very, very expensive. Yes, that is. It's very valuable advice. And so you're talking about all the logistic, all the technical. Let's talk about the heart side of this, right, because this is. I have witnessed a few friends recently losing parents to Alzheimer's, and the few friends that I've actually seen going through this happen to be writers, and they've been beautifully transparent about the experience, and I can only imagine what this does to your heart, what this experience is like on the inside. How did you, how did you handle it? How did you make sure that you were OK?
Speaker 1:I didn't handle it very well At the time. I was so overwhelmed. But you know, like a butterfly inside a cocoon, there was stuff happening. I just didn't see it then that when I came out at the other end, I was transformed and I people. So how I handled it was just taking care of the immediate moment there was. It seemed like there was always something to triage and that was it. That's all you can do in the middle of a crisis. You crash and burn later, right, but when I came out of it, I realized that I was transforming. I just didn't know it then.
Speaker 1:And what ended up happening is that, to let go of my parents, I did this private ritual by the sea and I literally held their ashes in my hand, and that changed me because, instead of feeling fear, I felt the deepest love I've ever known and my fear just dissipated.
Speaker 1:People ask me why I am not afraid now, and I said, well, I already went through that and I might be afraid five minutes from now, but right now I've already experienced this mystical thing that I would imagine. It's like when a person has a child, right, that it's just so beyond you and yet so incarnated Right and to really, you know, in life we're just so like, oh wow, yeah, I have this body and this skin and hair and stuff, but there's the ashes too, and you know, there's this whole. I don't know, there's almost a poetry to that that if we lived un-esthetized to that, if we're always in denial, it's harder to prepare for these things. And I just thought of something like the death cafe movement is a really good one to get into, even if you don't want to become a death doula. Talk to some death doulas, because they train to help families, not with the medical stuff but with the emotional stuff of letting go. They help the patient and they help the family and that's some really, really wonderful work.
Speaker 2:So I am familiar with death doulas, but in case members of our audience are not, will you allow you to explain death doula so that anyone who is not familiar with what that is?
Speaker 1:Sure, well, just like we have birth doulas comadres in Spanish. They're women who are not necessarily obstetricians, although in the olden times they would have been helped actually literally deliver the baby, one that is departing the body, and they come in and they evaluate your family, your situation, they'll create, uh, you know, projects or or tasks, or things that you can do to give you emotional support, and they hold your hand the whole way. There's a certain process to dying, even with the body, if you're dying naturally, like how your breathing changes. So you don't panic and you see, like this is my, my person is just passing, you know, passing through. It's their time to go and of course it's hard, but information is power and it is comforting. You know, this is one time when ignorance may not be bliss um for you to understand and also confront your own mortality.
Speaker 2:It feels as though it it would allow the process to be as peaceful as it possibly could be.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it's a time I think I mean in certain faiths. You know, some people do pay a lot of attention to this transition time, but I think we live in a society where we're just kind of trying to brush it under and there should be I think should be ritual. A person's going to die a month from now. Well, that's a whole month to honor and support that transition versus trying to rush through it. And you know, and also, of course, grief. I mean there's pre-bereavement, bereavement, post-bereavement. I remember someone in my one of my grief groups, when someone would ask her are you feeling better? She would say it's not a cold, you know it's. It's never going to go away, especially if the love was really great. So grief, I think grief education in our world is also really, really key.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it absolutely is. I want to go back to something you said, because it sounds to me as though you mentioned ritual, and I feel as though so much of your path has been centered around recognizing and honoring ritual ritual, at least from the time that you realized that this painful process you were going through with your parents was almost designed to direct you. You hold your parents' ashes, you honor their passing, and how soon after that ritual and spiritual experience did you decide to leave Miami?
Speaker 1:So my father passed away January 26 and I left on resurrection Sunday the following April.
Speaker 1:Really the appropriate day to start your life over. I went to a service on the sea at sunrise and I remember a fellow parishioner telling me, after I shared my journey with her. I was 49 at the time and she said, hon, your life won't start until you're 50, just go, just go. And she was right. And here I am seven years later um, and how soon. I mean. I was coming off of this intense, economically fraught, obviously grief-ridden. What the experience. And to decompress, I do the normal crazy thing I do. I just got on a Greyhound bus with no plan and I visited friends who opened their homes to me so I could grieve and spend some time with them. They were familiar with my journey. And nine months later I got a job in Washington DC, but I had no plan.
Speaker 1:And that was fate, providence, god, higher power, whatever you want to call it, but I had faith and I knew that I had to leave, that I had nothing to anchor me there anymore. It was time for me to fledge, as it were, and that my parents would have wanted that to just go. And now I'm in Spain, which was a lifelong dream as well to be closer to my roots.
Speaker 2:I love that. So what has that journey been like for you? Because you mentioned that the challenges and the pain that you faced with your parents have uniquely prepared you for today, for where you are now.
Speaker 1:Well, let's not forget that in between all of that, I got sober.
Speaker 2:Ah, yes, welcome. So you and I have that in common, so congratulations, of course.
Speaker 1:And so when you go through this caregiving process and then you go through the caregiving of yourself getting sober process, I'm not going to say cancer is a piece of cake, of course not. But I've been through some stuff and right, absolutely and, honestly, when I relapsed, I really thought I was going to die for real this time with this, not so much because I have care, I care for myself and I have faith in my higher power, and I have my practices and I live the program.
Speaker 2:So, so you mentioned relapsing. So you, at what point were you initially sober that you relapsed in 2021? Yes, yeah, so at what point were you initially sober?
Speaker 1:around the time I got to DC, like late 2017, okay, covid that whole thing and then some stuff happened. And you then you just say what's one glass of wine?
Speaker 2:well, one glass of wine can can be 10.
Speaker 1:It's incredible how I just quickly sink way down lower than you were before, and you don't even want to. And there you are. So, but that said, I needed to go through that.
Speaker 2:To be where you are now, right. Okay, so you relapse, and what brings you out of your relapse?
Speaker 1:The miracle of a scholarship to a wonderful treatment center and going back to things Okay and reuniting virtually with an old friend who became my sponsor. And of course not, and and bringing in community, and I've never looked back. That's what I needed, though I needed the respite. It wasn't just the relapse, it was everything that led up to that it's.
Speaker 2:It's interesting because I Because every story of relapse that I have heard it needed to happen right. That was the piece that put things together in order for that new phase of sobriety to exist. Sobriety to exist, it's it. It equipped you to be where you are now. It makes me wonder, had you not had that relapse and you had your cancer diagnosis, would you be as strong as you are now? Right, I have. I spoke to a previous guest who is also a friend and and I had said you know, I, I frequently have said I believe that when we go through recovery, we should be exempt from hard things, because we go through so much to find ourselves on this side of recovery and yet life still happens.
Speaker 2:We still get cancer diagnosis, we still lose people and experience extreme grief, we still lose jobs and our cars break down and we take care of elderly parents, and. But we have to have learned how to feel and experience and live. And if we don't know how to do those things, that's when we are in danger of the relapse again, because that's what the addiction is. The addiction is I don't want to feel, and so much of the beauty of what I'm hearing in you and your story is how you are feeling, how you are actively living.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Tell me about your cancer diagnosis.
Speaker 1:Well, if I may, just you can hold that thought for a second, of course, because I do have a newsletter on spirituality which is very much combined with current affairs, and I do do a lot of spiritual work, and I studied with Eckhart Tolle, you know, and I took these classes on mysticism at Georgetown, you know auditing because I just love this stuff and it makes me happy. I'm curious I lived in a wonderful city with an enormous spiritual interfaith community.
Speaker 1:most people don't think of dcs spiritual but it is um and but, like I tell my sponsor and go back to the words scaffolding for me, the 12 steps is the scaffolding of my life now all that other stuff really helps and I'm and like what you're saying is that if we don't learn how to live with this structure and which, by the way, is I've lectured on, this is based on the christ consciousness, but that's a whole other story. Um, it's hard and that's part of the of what helped me face this cancer diagnosis. Both things, um, and I continue to study and write about it, and so the cancer diagnosis is I have esophageal cancer. Okay, I have hopefully by now somewhat reduced 13 centimeter tumor right here close to the heart center, and I'm undergoing radiation and chemo. This will be well. I'm now in my second week of everything, or six more weeks.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm so grateful that you feel well enough to be chatting with us, and you look fantastic. So how are you feeling?
Speaker 1:Well, I do also have a minor lung bronchial booboo. I'm taking antibiotics. We had to postpone the last meeting because I was coughing so much.
Speaker 1:But I'm feeling much better and finally getting some sleep, and of course, that helps. I'm not able to go outside and walk these beautiful hills surrounding me here, okay, but I will as soon as I can breathe better. Um, I'm usually very active, but I just you know what this is a couple of weeks of cocooning, um, and I just my priority is to feel good and to feel joy, and when I don't feel so well like I had some nausea earlier this week, a lot of brain fog and fatigue, it's, it's normal. Then I just sit with that and it's it's not easy, but I, you know, the antidote for me is to supercharge my gratitude. I mean constantly I'm grounding and I'm gratitude. I mean constantly I'm grounding and I'm thanking, because I.
Speaker 1:It's a long story about how I ended up at this hotel near the hospital. God worked in my favor, even though it was extremely stressful to get here, and all of a sudden, these folks showed up in my life. They're taking me to radiation every day, even though it's just five minutes away, but I'm not going to schlep on the bus, you know, and these are friends of my sister when she used to live here and I just got instant community and it's Spain, so everyone's like everyone's hugging.
Speaker 2:you like instantly spain.
Speaker 1:So everyone's like, everyone's hugging you, like instantly, um. But I, as a friend told me these. He said you had to leave in order to save your life and of course my health care is affordable. Um, but you know, I didn't leave the us so I could get cheap health insurance. That wasn't it. Of course, I knew that would be a benefit, but I didn't know that I would have cancer. And here we are.
Speaker 2:How long after you left the United States did your diagnosis arrive, so I left.
Speaker 1:January 9th and I got the diagnosis in mid-June.
Speaker 2:Really so. This is a new diagnosis. How did you find out?
Speaker 1:Well, my gastroenterologist looked at my biopsy and said you have cancer. You know what I did right after? I went and bought a chocolate bar Good for you. I didn't eat it at the moment, but I did eat some ice cream and I walked like two miles on the Bay of Santander and just took it all in. What else could I do?
Speaker 2:You said that your experience with your parents uniquely prepared you for this diagnosis, for where you are right now, in what way.
Speaker 1:Well confronting medicine like that right. Not that I became an expert on medicine, but the ins and outs of what is required for a patient to receive care. I'm not talking about the IV, oh, by the way. This is from the hospital when they pinched me. But the, the, the emotional infrastructure, right, what? What would I have given to them that I need now? And I'm not afraid to ask for help, although there's that little voice in my head I don't know if it's my American side or you're an independent woman side- I'm not afraid to ask for help.
Speaker 1:And yet this little voice just swoops in and I tell it because now is the time to receive. And I mean, just take it. Just take it, and you know what Tomorrow I'm going to give and I have given. So it's living this economy of grace right. And then also understanding that I am not. You know, I've got all my faculties about me. Thankfully I do not have Alzheimer's. I may feel like crap one day, but I'm coming into this physically strong. I was already eating healthy.
Speaker 2:I was not depressed.
Speaker 1:I was in a place that I came to because I wanted to, out of love, out of wanting to explore my history, and I think that makes a big difference though, that to have experienced the death of my parents in that way, and then just say, well, now it's my turn to seize the day. You know, my brother passed away two years ago. He was in his 60s. He had a dream to come here and he died very suddenly from this respiratory disease. He was also very strong and and he never made it. So I said you know what I'm going to go and here I am Good for you.
Speaker 2:So what advice would you give to our listeners about seizing the day, about taking advantage of each day in front of them? You've had some surprising news news you weren't expecting and you are in the process of going after the moments that matter right in front of you, and still life continues to happen around you well, um, the first thing that comes to mind is that the idea is that we're never done, and if you believe certain things, you you're not even done after you die.
Speaker 1:You know we're always healing, and so I may. Oh, let's say that I'm going to survive this. Of course I am. Um, something else might kill me, but maybe not this, and there might be another challenge, um, after that, but it's all part of a continual healing spectrum, right? Uh, I don't want to have cancer, but I'm almost not surprised because there's so much that we hold here in this center that I've carried so much grief my whole life, you know.
Speaker 1:If you want to talk about it energetically, uh, that is is. Is it's talking to me, like I decided. I mean, I do use a particular hashtag that has an expletive in it, but I don't have a problem with expletives if you would like to share Cancer. But that's more for social media reason. But I am not antagonizing my body.
Speaker 1:I talk to my tumor. I haven't named it yet, but what do you want? What do you need? What, what stories are you trying to tell me? Um, how can I help you heal? How can I help you heal? It's time for you to go. What does my inner child want? Let's let's talk about it instead of being afraid about it. It is part of me, it is and and I want to nurture my entire body, my mind and soul. You know, it's, it's um, it's all integrated, and so the other thing that helps me get motivated is to be fully present in the moment, all the time.
Speaker 1:I mean, I already kind of lived like that right really live like that now, and also the fact that, well, I'm nauseated now, but that is a symptom. I am not the symptom, right. That is chemistry, you know. You're not always nauseated, right, and in those moments when I feel good, I just stop and go, like I saw this sun shower the other day in this valley and I said, all right, I'm really in love with this moment. This is so beautiful.
Speaker 2:I love that you do that. I do that too. I love that you do that. I do that too. I, I do. You find that I'm 52, we're only a few years apart. Do you find that you do that more now than you used to? Do you find that that is a function of age and wisdom and having witnessed life, or have you always been that way?
Speaker 1:I've always, I've always been a child in awe, and I hope she never goes away. My life got in the way of her and I, and, and, and well, I will tell you, I mean, menopause was the best thing that ever happened to me. But in addition to the physical changes, that I most welcome, actually, it's the ability to still be in your prime, because this isn't our grandmother's menopause, you know.
Speaker 2:No, it's not.
Speaker 1:And still be filled with curiosity and wonder and, you know, still be sassy and sexy and funny. And my parishioner friend was right your life does not start until you're 50. Because now your creative energy is towards the world Pouring forth you're more expletive, but it's I call it the great age of not giving fucks, except for the things that really matter, really matter. I have nothing left to give, but you still have some more of those. But for the right things, you're discerning, absolutely you're. You're curating those f's that you're giving out.
Speaker 2:I. I couldn't possibly agree more. Those are. I have found that my flocks to give are very specific now. They no longer are directed to the things that do not matter they. My boundaries, are clear. I am very specific about where I put my energy, because I know what I want to grow. I know where I am no longer giving out to the wrong people, the wrong things. I am far more protective of myself, in a way that I never used to be. I poured forth giving to anyone and everyone and while I still consider myself a giver, I am far more protective of that energy because I've learned.
Speaker 1:I have learned. Isn't that a?
Speaker 2:great place to be. It is. And I didn't get there until I was, you know. I thought that that was starting to happen in my forties and I thought, yeah, like this, this life doesn't happen until forties. And I interviewed a girlfriend of mine a few weeks ago and she's in her early forties and you know she's had a lot happen. And she said you know 40s, and you know she's had a lot happen. And she said you know these. She was talking about how this next life is her best life. Right, and I feel that even more so now in my 50s than I did in my 40s, and it feels very much that you are the same.
Speaker 1:Yes, hashtag fab over 50.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there you go everything there you go and I'm inspired.
Speaker 1:You know there's a lot of women um silver women on social media now also just flaunting it. You know you start weight training when you're in your 60s. They're looking beautiful and and spunky. You know iris apple was my spirit animal. I mean, just live it up I love that.
Speaker 2:It's so delightful to have you on here. What do you think is, how would you define hope?
Speaker 1:well, hope definitely comes to visit, but and it's knocking on your door. Sometimes that knock is a little rap and sometimes it's pounding, but you have to open the door, and I talked to some people. I wrote a post on Facebook the other day about locating your faith, which is like hope, and someone wrote to me privately and said I can't locate my faith. I said are you sure? No, I just want to smoke a cigarette when I feel, or something. There's always something and this is the addict in me talking that got in the way of the pure hope or the pure faith that I believe is our spiritual birthright for everyone. And now that I look back on my life, I was dimming my own light, I was muddying up my connection to the diviner or my God of my understanding Right, and so, even in my darkest moment, it was like this tiny, little, microscopic kernel of hope that somehow pulled me through, and I never forget that.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love that I found that there was one period of my life where I couldn't see it, and it was at a time when I I had I was working on this podcast, and at that time I thought, who am I to be doing a podcast on hope If I have finally reached a place where I can't even see it? I can't feel it. I I've always been someone who can, who can see the light, even if I don't know how to get there, and I realized that I had to go through that darkness in order to come out on the other side, to be able to do this podcast, and I'm so.
Speaker 2:I get to be grateful for that piece of my journey as well, because without each and every piece of my journey, I'm not the version of myself that I am right now, and I'm grateful for who I am right now. It's a it's, but without the tough and the hard, we don't recognize the glorious and the joyful and the beautiful. If everything felt amazing, amazing would eventually feel dull and beige. If everything didn't have, if everything was just a, an average color, the bright wouldn't be so vivid. So I though it doesn't always happen during the difficult times I get to be grateful for them afterwards.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I absolutely, and I think that hope is a muscle you train so that the next time you fall into the pit of despair, you've got a little more of a rope to pull you up. I'm very inspired by the story of St John of the Cross, the great Christian contemplative, and he was literally in a dark pit when he wrote his book, and so I think of him down there and how, in some way, being in that darkness just reinforced his faith and I.
Speaker 1:How, in some way, being in that darkness just reinforces faith, and I sometimes I'm not sitting here with rose-colored glasses- and let's say, like I get depressed about something four weeks from now, but I can deal with it Right, because I've already developed the muscle memory for hope, or the spiritual muscle memory for hope and to remember that we've had good times and that we've overcome them Right. And that's got to come from here, that faith in yourself and to ask for help.
Speaker 2:You are an inspiration. I am so grateful to have had this conversation with you. Where can people find you?
Speaker 1:Well, my website is heartcenteredmariacom, and on there they will find links to my newsletter, my social media. I'm pretty much heartcentered Maria all over the place. Okay, and that's a good place to start. I haven't updated the website in a while. It doesn't talk about me moving to Spain yet, but at least it has links to everything.
Speaker 2:And I'm also in our show notes. We'll be sharing, or have shared, your GoFundMe page where people can can support everything you've got going on right now with your cancer journey, so we definitely want to make sure that we're helping as much as we can with with that. Is there anything that you'd like to share, perhaps your poem, before we go?
Speaker 1:uh sure, if you'll give me just a moment. I'm honored to be able to read this.
Speaker 2:I'm honored that you're willing.
Speaker 1:It's called Spoonfuls. Hmm, she squirts dish soap instead of oil into the frying pan. Soon enough, no more cooking. Soon enough, spoon feeding. Soon enough, spoon feeding. Soon enough, no more swallowing. Soon enough, no more water. Soon enough, last breath, death does not come soon enough. Death does not come soon enough, beating my mother ever so slowly. Alzheimer's swallows her memory, gulping her straight into the dark Half an hour to eat eight ounces of puree, spoonful by spoonful. She once fed me, nourishing her little bundle of joy, spoonful by spoonful. And now my impatience, so mundane and so greedy. It ticks away. But infinity marks time. In these quiet moments of love, applesauce upchuck, soiled bibs, I become a mother to my mother and life serves me. 46 years, a long gestation measured by thousands of meals we never share between my first spoonful and my mother's last. Death does come soon enough. And, mother, you told me so many stories, but never the one about the entire meaning of life contained in the final spoonful. Now the bowl is empty.
Speaker 2:And these are its pages. Oh Maria, that was beautiful, thank you. Thank you so much for honoring us with that. Your mother and your father were both so incredibly lucky to have had you taking care of them, and I'm lucky that you spent time with me today.
Speaker 1:I feel so blessed to have spent time with you and to share my story. I'm very, very grateful, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you and I'm wishing you all the heart, health and happiness, and I'm going to have to come visit you in Spain. Oh, yes, please. Thank you for being here and, friends, thank you so much for joining us on Hope Comes to Visit. I hope that we have met you where you are today and that you have felt the light of Maria's story and that you will turn around and share it with the people you know and you love, and that you will take time to subscribe and spend some more time with us in the coming weeks. Until then, take good care of you. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 2:Naturally, it's important to thank the people who support and sponsor the podcast. This episode is supported by Chris Dulley, a trusted criminal defense attorney and friend of mine here in St Louis, who believes in second chances and solid representation. Whether you're facing a DWI, felony or traffic issue, chris handles your case personally with clarity, compassion and over 15 years of experience. When things feel uncertain, it helps to have someone steady in your corner. Call 314-384-4000 or 314-DUI-HELP or you can visit dullylawfirmcom to schedule your free consultation.