What is the first choice that I must make? Obviously, deciding which sort of influence I want to explain to you. In my opinion it is an easy choice because I think that a person who has had a bad influence in their life do not deserve to be remembered. What I am trying to say is that you have learned with that experience the things that you will not repeat in your life, and you only have to keep it in your memory.
On the other hand, you normally are proud of a good influence and usually you will be reminiscent to other people about it. That is what I want, I will remember and write about a tiny woman, and in this case the smaller she was, the stronger her temper was. Her short life was not easy and many of her experiences were very difficult situations, which she made use of constantly for teaching me how to deal with problems.
She grew up being the oldest of four brothers and sisters, with her father imprisoned after the Spanish Civil War and working to help her family since she was only ten years old. When she reached her 21st birthday, she left her closest family and her loved city, Mérida, and immigrated to Catalonia looking for a better way of life. She travelled alone for her first time, by train and crossing Spain from one side to another. At that time she was newly married, and her partner had left the city two months in advance to be employed in a factory in Barcelona. In my childhood, she always told me two sayings, which have helped me with some essential decisions in my life, and these were:
The first and more important; “One that would have the fruit must climb the tree” by which she wanted to instruct me that I could not win anything without my own effort, and the second one, related to the need of doing a hard job with my learning; “One can never know too much”.
Without any kind of doubt it was my mother the person who has had the most powerful influence in my life. This is my little homage.
