A Hero Among Us – The Faithful One
It’s not easy to follow a dream, to take those steps off the cliff edge and surrender to the unknown. It is even more daunting to do so when others depend on you, you are faced with family loss or have health challenges. Yet, Annette Hernandez has followed her dream despite all she has met with courage, strength, determination, grace, and kindness.
Annette credits her Nana Jessie for her approach to life. She taught her to pray, put God first, and take her worries and challenges to Him. She also taught her to have and pursue personal goals, ultimately trusting what is placed before her. These are lessons I have watched Annette embody in my interactions with her over the last several years.
Those lessons were put to work early as Annette was married at the age of 15 and mother to two boys by 17, facing adult challenges before truly experiencing adulthood herself. Despite some of those closest to Annette painting a bleak future for her as a teen married with children, she shared with me, “These precious humans needed me. I was going to be the best I could be for them…I was determined to prove any naysayers wrong. Times were not always easy, but I learned then that when you commit to something, you follow through…no going back…if you trip and fall, you get back up and move forward, and I did just that.”
So forward, Annette moved. She had always wanted to be a business owner, and clarity came with the words from Oprah, ‘If you look at what you have in life; you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.’ Looking at her life and what she had, inspired her to share her party planner skills and love of design with others beyond her family and close friends. A bit of research, lots of prayers, and the support of her husband were all it took for Annette to become the business owner she had always dreamed of being.
Yet life isn’t wrapped up neatly in a package with a bow, and dreams don’t always have fairy tale endings. Soon after Annette began her business, her mother was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer. Annette states, “My mom and I had a conversation, and she told me she was going to fight hard to beat this, and I knew she would. We cried, we prayed, we laughed, but we never gave up.” Fortunately, the cancer went into remission, and after several months, Annette decided to take the next big step in her dream and open a storefront. Sadly, shortly after this decision, Annette’s mom began to experience debilitating headaches, and subsequent testing found cancer had not only returned but had spread to her brain. Her mom, however, is not a quitter; she had been helping in the business for many years and was determined to work with Annette in the new store. Soon after being released from the hospital, Annette recounts how she visited the new store, “She sat on the stool and looked at me and tears filled in her eyes and said, ‘You did it Nettie, your dream is alive, and I am so proud of you.’” Grievously the celebratory Grand Opening for the store, scheduled just three days later, was put on hold when Annette’s mom succumbed to cancer.
Annette shares how devastated she was with her loss of her mom and best friend but firmly believed despite her physical absence, she was with her in spirit and they would meet again. In the interim, there were things to do and a life to live with her two sons, husband, and grandson. Weeks later, a successful Grand Opening for Just 2 Sweet Events did occur. Things seemed to fall into a routine until two months to the day of Annette’s mom’s passing when a simple phone call let Annette know she had Breast Cancer and would need treatment.
As her mother and Nana Jessie had taught her, prayer, courage, and determination were the weapons she brought to bear in fighting for her life. For Annette, closing the business was not an option because of all the people who would be impacted. Thus, with the help of her assistant and her family, she went into treatment, still coordinating weddings, still supporting community functions, and still attending board meetings. She states, “I fought the fight and won!!! I am now going on 3 1/2 years of remission. This is my journey, and my love for my family, community and my faith in God is what keeps me going.”
Annette’s story reminds me how true it is heroes walk among us each day, often unnoticed and unrecognized because we don’t know their story. For you see, while I knew a bit about Annette’s journey, I didn’t know the details or the time frames. I didn’t recognize the courage it had taken for her to make the decisions she made or take the actions she had taken. What I did know was her strength, her determination, and her generous heart. And, as you might have guessed, Annette’s hero is Lynda, her mom. ~♥~