Dear Mama

Sorry I missed you last week, I was struggling but we are back and better. FYI this one is long and kinda sad, so let this serve as a warning. Skip to part two to meet the coolest woman in VC.

The Final Days

Four years ago on February 3rd, 2019, my mom passed away. She had been sick since 2012 and her time fighting cancer had simply come to an end. I did not always have a smooth relationship with my mom, we were often arguing and disagreeing. This was primarily because fighting with her was like fighting with myself, I mirrored most of her behaviors and reasoning, so we never really got anywhere.

Our relationship took a turn in the summer of 2018 when her and I both realized that she was not going to be alive for much longer. There is something about the process of dying that creates a level of clarity I’ve never seen before. Everything my mom and I ever fought about up until that point disappeared. Our relationship shifted to one of holding on tight, both to each other and her numbered days.

On our last “good” day together I took my mom to the doctor. She had committed to a risky treatment plan to try and take care of her leukemia, but that plan meant forfeiting the treatment for her Ovarian cancer. That cancer was growing in the background, we didn’t know how bad it was. In the waiting room my mom fell asleep on my shoulder, and I held her hand while she got her chemo infusion.

After the appointment she went back home to my Aunt’s house and I drove back towards UCLA. I had midterms to take and my mom was adamant about me not missing school. But she cried in the parking lot that day. Hard. I think she knew that the next time she saw me things would not be the same, she had been losing her grip on life. I didn’t want to leave but I had to. Four days later I got a call from my cousin at 7:30AM telling me I had to come home, my mom had fallen and was taken to the hospital in an ambulance.

After a morning of car trouble I drove in pouring rain for 5 hours in a rush to get to the hospital. By the time I got there my mom had not been able to speak for several hours. When she saw me she started to say the same phrase over and over. “You’re not 21. 21. 21. You’re not even 21.” These were the last words my mother ever spoke. She passed away 2 days later on Sunday, February 3rd 2019.

I am so grateful for the family and friends who stepped up during that time to care for me, but if I’m being honest, I have never felt more alone in my life. Every day for weeks I would drive an hour to Merced, and try and pack up my childhood home room by room. 27 years my mom lived in that house, and I was a kid in a grown up costume trying to handle it all. Every photo, every piece of clothing, every knick knack and receipt my mom collected had to be sifted through. Most of it was thrown away or donated, I lived in an apartment with 5 girls and couldn’t keep much. Neither could my brother who also had several roommates at the time. An entire life, my mom’s whole material existence, packed in boxes, handed off to strangers, and thrown in a dumpster. I still have nightmares about the dumpster.

I’ve always been the kind of person who shrugs it off when someone tells me they think I’m “strong,” or say “wow that must have been so hard.” My canned response is always “that’s just life, can’t do anything about it” but I’m admitting now that it was fucking hard. I am strong. I was practically a kid, handling a tragedy that most people don’t experience until they are much older.

Losing my mom sent me on a journey of grief that I can’t really explain. My sense of self became distorted, I felt like I was in the passenger seat of my own life with no clue who was driving the car. It took me over a year to find myself on the ground again, but it happened. If you’ve lost a loved one that has left you hopeless, empty, or lost, I want you to know that you WILL move forward eventually. Be kind to yourself, this experience is not something anyone but you can understand. Thanks for being here and letting me tell the truth. See you next week, ily.

Who Inspires Me Today?

I talk about synchronicities a lot. Last week I experienced one with Alicia that blew me away. I had been feeling unsettled about coming up on the anniversary of my mom’s death but I was powering through anyway. Alicia was speaking on a panel of an event I attended, during that panel she shared that the death of her mom brought her back to LA and took her towards a new and unplanned career path in venture. She told a story of returning to her mother’s grave, and reading her a letter to her mom and listening to a Tupac song on the way home, that inspired her to create Dear Mama Ventures.

Alicia has one of the most inspiring stories I’ve ever heard. After an inspiring conversation with her grandfather she decided to challenge herself at 20 years old and enlist in the army. She served 6 years as the only woman on an all man team, and this was really just the beginning. She learned on deployment that her power and skills as a woman made her team even more effective, her squad leader literally called her their “combat multiplier.” During her time in the service she came to realize her super power was building ecosystems.

Fast forward a few years after her time in the army, Alicia attended university, worked at a massive fund, then decided to pursue entrepreneurship. She wanted to find a way to help professional athletes transition into normal life after their career in the game ended. She saw it as a massive opportunity to build a community, and she definitely did.

Her life changed when she got a call from her brother and he said “mom’s dead.” She uprooted her life in Baltimore and returned to LA, which sent her on a journey she was not planning. I was able to hear Alicia tell this story twice, and both times I could feel the vulnerability seep out of her. There is power in telling your truth fully, and she displays it gracefully.

Losing her mom was a moment for Alicia that left her with tons of doubt and confusion. She was a single mom of a one year old, and was searching for a way to anchor herself. She spent the next few years serving the LA Veteran community and building her life in Los Angeles, but she was still feeling lost. This is what led her to visit her mom’s grave for the first time in years after she passed, where she read a letter that began with “Dear Mama”. Followed by a drive home with this song playing in the background.

Alicia, now 36, is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Dear Mama Ventures. Dear Mama is a diverse venture platform dedicated to closing the ecosystem gap for underestimated founders. You can listen to Alicia’s Ted Talk here, and read more about her team and vision at the Dear Mama Website.

As always, thank you for being here. If today’s words left a mark on you, please reply and let me know.