Some of you may not know this but my mom once travelled to New York City. It’s hard to imagine myself. Not everyone I know, has had the opportunity.

Below is a video I have been searching for for years! We had a copy of the original and because my mom is so nice, she lent it out and it was never returned. You can watch it in its entirety, but if you want to see the good stuff, just scroll to 12 minutes and you will witness my mom, Maria and my older sister, Rosy, as part of a panel on the Phil Donahue Show.

Yes, you read that correctly. My mom and my sister were on Donahue about twenty years ago, talking about the miraculous Jesus tortilla.

(please try not to get distracted by my sister’s hideous vest.)

Thanks to Steve Kane for locating this video.

Ladies and gentlemen, my mom was on Donahue.

I remember exactly when my sister Rosy told me that her and my mom were going to go on Donahue. I was in High School and we had just finished playing a game in Hondo, New Mexico and stopped at the gas station before heading back to Lake Arthur. I called Rosy from the payphone (and who had an 800 number, which I’m just now remembering) to let her know that we had won. (c’mon, it was Hondo) It was during that brief conversation that she tells me that her and mom are flying to New York City to be on Donahue.

I rode the bus home extremely upset.

Quick back story. When I was younger and having challenges with anxiety and not wanting to go to school, (but for some reason I wanted to be an actress) Rosy convinced me that if I graduated from High School, she would take me to New York City for graduation.  I was not yet a Senior at this time, so when I called Rosy on this evening and she informed me of this trip to New York City, two things happened:

1) I didn’t understand the magnitude back then. It was just a tortilla! Why would Donahue want to have my mom on the show? HOW EMBARRASSING!?

2) Why did Rosy and my mom get to be the one’s to go to New York City?! They don’t even know where that is!?

I regret to inform you that I really was a rotten teenager and I’m trying my best to overcome that, hence this blog (therapy)

Back to the story.

Rosy, hideous vest and my mom…all on Donahue.

I don’t remember much leading up to Donahue, but mom and Rosy left, and then there they were, on our television screen, on the Phil Donahue Show. What I do remember is sitting on our living room floor as the show aired in Lake Arthur. Mom looking so nervous and scared. Rosy seemed so confident. (perhaps it was the vest)

For Rosy, it’s always been easy. She was there when the Jesus tortilla appeared to my mom in 1977. Rosy was the person that confirmed the discovery as soon as my mom asked her what she thought it was. If there is anyone in the world who has as much faith in God as my mom, it’s my sister, Rosy. Going on Donahue was a no brainer for her. It was a story that had to be shared with millions and she was prepared to do so.

For me, it’s never been that easy. Until now. Not easy in the sense that I’ve been converted and now know what mom and Rosy must have witnessed on that day on October 5, 1977. Instead, it’s becoming easier to speak publicly because I owe that much to my mom. I look at her, watching this video, and WOW! The bravery she had. Just a decade earlier, my mom couldn’t even leave our house to go to church across the street at Our Lady of Guadalupe and here she was, a woman born in El Barranco outside Ojinaga, Chihuahua, Mexico, who immigrated to New Mexico at such a young age, then, to get on a plane, for the first time at age 55 — to fly to New York City, to be on the Phil Donahue Show!

If you don’t believe that the Jesus tortilla is miraculous, you must at least try to understand that all the things that my mom has experienced can’t be coincidental, at least that is what I’m beginning to believe. Although I still have my own doubts about this whole situation, I can honestly say that I know it’s gotta be something. What that is, I can’t say. But it’s something.