Mami

Originally published July 29, 2025

Everybody that walks the world believes that I am the spitting image of William Reyes, a.k.a. my dad. I’ve almost never met a person who saw us next to each other or saw a picture of us and didn’t say “you look just like your dad.” It’s just fact at this point. Objectively, I do look a lot like my dad, but I’m one hundred percent sure that in reality, I’m the perfect and complete mixture of my parents. It’s very apparent to me, in the way I look, the way I act, the things I like, the things I say, everything about who I am as a human girl is an exact culmination of William and Nancy. So when people tell me I look like my dad, I take it as a compliment, but I know that no matter how much I look and act like my dad, I was fully built by my mom and imagined by the both of them.

In November of 2004, Nancy Reyes went into labour at my Godparent’s wedding reception (I’ve had to be the center of attention my whole life, of course), and a day later, my dad became a dad, and my mom became a mom.

My mom has been a mom for about 20 years, almost 21 now. But really, I’ve been with my mom since she was born, who was with her mom since she was born, and so on. Women are born with all the eggs they will ever have. So, when my mom was born, I was there with her, just waiting to meet her- and I did, about 26 years later. Now, all these years after I met her, my mom is 47. Happy birthday, Mami.

My parents met way back when- around 2002, 2003. They were coworkers. My mom was born in 1977, and my dad in 1981. Nancy thought he would think she’s too old for him, but Will had eyes for her. They would drive around Bridgeport in my dad’s old beater and listened to the bootleg 50 Cent CD he had in the stereo. But prior to that, my mom moved to the states with a suitcase and a dream.

She came to the U.S. for a trip, went back to her home country, and a few months later, she jumped on a plane and took the train from Miami to Connecticut, and stayed there we made it to Florida in 2010. It’s hard to say that Nancy never looked back, because she did, and still does. We visited when I was a baby, but none of us have been back since. My mom remembers where she came from in other ways. Anything I’ve ever grown out of, any shirts, dressed, shoes, dolls, toys, anything, has found its way into a box and onto a plane back to the cousins I’ll seemingly never get the pleasure of meeting.

My mom only had one kid, but she provides for so many. My mom likes to volunteer at beach and park cleanups. She likes clean on Saturday mornings and get distracted halfway through when she pulls the karaoke machine out of the closet. She’s oddly in love with Mickey Mouse and has a strange, resulting hate for Minnie. She’s the second baseman on our family’s recreational softball team. She has one goddaughter and she taught her just which buttons she has to push to get me annoyed, and they love to laugh about it. She has the most insane laugh you will ever hear. She My mom likes to get her nails done and she has a makeup artist on hand for any special event. She tries not to repeat outfits for those events, and she loves to look through my closest. She raised me in her image. I dress like her, try my best to sound like her, I act like her, I pout like her. I fight like her.

Before Nancy moved to the states, she was going to be a lawyer. I spent a very long time aspiring to do the same. But, just like my mom, there was better paths ahead for me. My mom works a factory-style job now, and she dresses up as the Easter bunny and plays on the kickball team and sometimes, gets into fights. If you ask her, she’ll say she’s exactly where she’s supposed to be.

My parent’s built me in their image with the hope that I would be able to do more then they could. I was to be the brightest kid with the brightest future. Somewhere down the line, I feel like I lost that a bit. I wasn’t as much of a star anymore, at least in my eyes. But my parents never made me feel that way. When I wanted to leave university and move back home, they said okay. When I wanted to leave home and run away to Orlando, they said okay. When I couldn’t afford to run away and I needed help, they said okay. Every step I take and move I make is a direct result of the way in which William and Nancy showed me how to be. And I just hope that they’re the right steps. I suppose they have to be though, because my mom taught me how to dance, after all.

Happy birthday, Mami.

Bendicion.

Love, Lilly