‘Madga Lee Maldonado Acosta. Te amo, Mami.’

I’ve had this idea since I was in high school. I always wanted to honor my Mom with a tattoo of her name, but I wanted it to be different than every other tattoo out there.

Since music was the thing that matters the most after Mom, I though that recording a sound wave of her name made the most sense for me.

I was never able to get it done while she was alive.

My mother was my best friend. No one else kept it real with me like she did. At six, she made it clear her time with me was short, after all I was next to her in a hospital bed when she said it. She was in a hospital bed after a kidney transplant that would soon after not take. And, 8–9 years later, we would find out infected her with hepatitis C.

Mom died thirteen years ago (2007), two months after my first child was born. Li was born at 24 weeks on my mother’s birthday in January. (I knew at that moment, as he battled for his own life, that Mom was not going to be with us much longer.)

Mom took her last breath in Colorado Springs. I wasn’t able to be next to her. (That feeling hunts me daily.) So in 2019, when I had the opportunity to go back to the Springs, I knew I had to face those feelings.

At Garden of the Gods, a place Mom always wanted me to go to with her, I was able to bring my high school idea to life. I stood up on a beautiful red rock, and I recorded my dream tattoo.

“Magda Lee Maldonado Acosta. Te amo, Mami.”

What I wasn’t ready for was for the howling winds breathing between those rocks at the Garden to leave their print on my recording. Not only was I honoring Mami, I was able to bring the place that last saw her living home with me.

Why am I sharing this? Why now?

Honestly, whatever you’re carrying with you can pressure you to the ground or can be leveraged to hold you up instead. Most of you know I don’t have it all together. That every single day is a new struggle. That I’m scared for my health, my kids wellbeing, and my wife’s ability to deal with my shit.

Truth is I’m trying to find balance myself every day.

Yet, I don’t give up because of her. Mom. Who died at 38 after 20 years of dialysis dealing with condition after condition and never giving up. For me. Because of me.

That’s why I can’t give up. They’re why I can’t give up. That’s what this ink on my arm means to me. Trying my best. Every single day.

I owe it to her.