Embracing A Warrior’s Heart
I was asked to share the speech I wrote for my mother's 60th birthday party. So here it is. Feel free to share it with women in your life that need inspiration / hope (especially in a time like now):
Mom’s 60th Birthday Speech
11/16/2016
As most of you know, I’m also an actor & writer. So when time came to write this speech, the strangest thing happened…I couldn’t. I couldn’t for the life of me recall a Luna story that was both appropriate and pleasant. Not to say my mom is unpleasant, she is my best friend, my travel buddy, someone who is constantly giving of her time and energy to her friends, family and co-workers, someone who loves to laugh and dance, and someone I share all my secrets with. And no one makes me laugh harder than my mom.
But the stories that stand out the most were the times she was…disciplining me. Like the time my friend, Raiya, and I were caught marking up a Mc Donald’s bathroom as bored teenagers with dry erase markers. The employees assumed we had used permanent sharpies. So the cops came and we were taken to the police station. It was probably more of a tactic to scare us thirteen year olds straight. But I thought I was going to outsmart the police and I lied to the police officer. On a sidenote, This was probably when I knew I was going to be an actor. I said that I was just visiting my friend and that I really was from the Philippines and my parents had died a long time ago. I cried. And he believed me.
But then he dropped us off at my friend’s house…who just happened to live next door to me. And guess who got home from work at the exact same time I was getting out of the police car? Yup. My not so dead…mother. To say that I’ve never seen my mother so angry in my entire life would be an understatement. She scared me way more than that police officer ever could. AND I learned very valuable lessons that day:
1) Never ever lie to the police and
2) My mom can be very…scary.
Everyone in my family knows that my mom is unapologetically fiery. Because if Auntie Luna tells you to do something…you do it after she asks nicely the first time. I would see my mom’s rage burn so brightly that even a man twice her size and 100 pounds heavier would crouch in fear. My mom is never too scared to engage in battle.
So being raised in a patriarchal America, I grew up scared of her fight. Scared that her passion and spiciness was hereditary.
But then, Last year I read an article called: “Warrior Lessons”. It referenced an ancient tale from Tibet. In this tale, the birth of a warrior’s strength is like the first growth of a reindeer’s horns. “At first those horns emerge from the reindeer’s head, soft and rubbery, unable to be used by the reindeer who is eager to use them to fight. But slowly they harden. Stronger points begin to sprout.” This tale teaches us that fearlessness is like those rubbery horns. At first, they may seem ready but it takes time and patience to put strength into them. These horns are part of the reindeer’s birthright. In the same way, I learned that I must first give birth to the tender heart of warriorship. Fighting skills take time and practice. And just as the reindeer knows its birthright, I know I have the power of the fight within me. It’s taken a very long time for my fight to gain it’s strength. But just like my mother, I feel that innate sense of truth passed down from many many generations of passionate women that tells me when fighting is necessary. Giving me the inner strength to live fearlessly and courageously as a woman of color during such a turmoil time and as an artist in New York City. Because in New York, fighting and hustling is a way of life. It’s how you thrive on the East Coast.
It has taken me four years living in New York to fully appreciate the strength, power and fight that my mother has passed down to me. Unlike me, My mother’s own inner strength has shone through, throughout her lifetime. Like when at seventeen she was kicked out of the family home. But instead of begging to be let back in, she got a job and started down a long path of independence and financial freedom. Or when her marriage with my father wasn’t safe and it wasn’t working, she didn’t stay married in complacency…she divorced him and became a single mother. She took up two jobs and went to night school to make sure I was taken care of. Or when she was getting passed up time and time again for promotions because she lacked a four year college degree. She didn’t stay where she was hoping something would change, she put herself through school at St. Mary’s at the age of 46. And because of those examples and many many more, my mom taught me that BEING A STRONG INDEPENDENT WOMAN is something that is very much possible.
Now I realize and fully embrace that my fiery fight & inner strength is most definitely hereditary. And that the strong, opinionated and often times stubborn gene ran deep within the blood of the females in my family tree….on both sides. My cousin Sherelle would often tell me, “It takes a very strong and special man to endure and be in partnership with women in this family”. Seven boyfriends later and still unmarried at the age of 36, I am in 100% agreement with her. But before you take pity on me…. Shonda Rhymes, one of the producer/writers I look up to, once said, “We’re so conditioned to believe that THAT having a husband is the definition of happiness that nobody stops to think: that might not be what defines us.” Throughout my life, my mom has shown me that settling isn’t what we do as powerful women. That just being married isn’t enough. I am not saying you can’t be happily married. I see many example of happily married couples right here in this room. I’m just saying that being married does not define me or my worth and it doesn’t create my happiness.
It’s taken 36 years, but I am reminded that my happiness is something I get to choose every day. Happiness is the life I’m currently living bicoastally in New York City & The Bay Area as a working artist. A life that my mom and my ancestors have worked & sacrificed so hard to give me. A life full of freedoms that I am so grateful for here in America. A life that I love calling my own.
So on this very special day celebrating my mom, my best friend and my personal heroine, I want to say, “Thank you, mom. Thank you for:
- Teaching me that SAYING “No” isn’t about being mean; it’s about laying down my boundaries and respecting myself.
- Teaching me through example that hard work, education, faith and resourcefulness are far better than good looks, fair skin and a size zero waistline.
- Thank you for setting an example of political wokeness. With the current climate of this country, you’ve taught me to never allow others to disrespect me or those I love. And that I shouldn’t be afraid to stand up against hate, bigotry and bullying!
- And most importantly, Thank you for teaching me that what defines me isn’t anything I have…but what comes from within. It comes from the fire, passion, fearlessness and strength that I have within that allows me to fight for the life I want and create. Because it’s not enough to just sit on the couch and dream about a life you want or the change you want to see, we must all stand up and create it no matter how hard it takes to fight for it.
So thank you for passing down your genetic coding of courageous warrior power, deep fiery strength and some killer fountain of youth genes! Seriously, if that’s what I have to look forward to at 60…I am so very thankful! Cheers, mom! I love you!”
