A much better day.

Yesterday started out rough.

It actually started the night before. After watching a "24" marathon with Shereen, the last episode ended with (spoiler alert) Jack walking into the morgue to see the dead body of his girlfriend. Man, I started having flashbacks to that morning when I walked into my mom's hospital room to say my final goodbye after she had passed. Her mouth wide open and the color drained from her skin. Ever been to a wax museum? Kinda looked like that except without the make-up. That energy carried into yesterday. I couldn't get out of bed. I had planned on getting up at 6am, hitting 7am yoga class then a 9am Apple Store appointment. I finally woke up around 10am and thought, "Okay...not as I had planned." And that happens sometimes. If I don't get up early, I sometimes lose an entire day (even before the passing of my mom). The plus is that I don't have a 9-5. The minus is...this shit happens sometimes. I lose all motivation to accomplish anything, to write anything. I sometimes think, "I didn't move here to be a writer. I moved here to be an actor." But you have to be incredibly self-motivated and self-creative, particularly these days with the market wide open. It's the wild west out there. There are no rules anymore. As long as you have a laptop and a camera phone, that's all you need. So get to work!

Well, I didn't yesterday. I barely got out of bed long enough to eat leftover thai food for breakfast and a turkey burger and some green beans for lunch. Then I had to get up to go to Downbeat. Oh, boy.

And that's where everything changed.

I got there, hung out in the office with Justin and Naomi, told them that I wasn't feeling too well, that I was missing my mom today. Then we made our way upstairs to open the doors and hope (and pray) that some students would come. DOWNBEAT 720 - LA's premier open stage for high school performers. Yeah, well, high school kids have a lot on their plate and we have no idea sometimes what to expect. And I had agreed to let a French documentarian come and shoot our kids. He's doing a documentary about a young Parisian girl who comes to live with an LA native as she interviews people about "The American Dream." What if no kids show up?? What will that say about the American Dream??

Well...the kids showed up. Robert, our new beatboxer kid, Maddie, our incredibly talented pianist/singer, Tyrell, our incredibly gifted guitarist, Eli, a new poet/MC, our girls from the Second City improv class, a new band called "Verbal Destruction" (metal of course) and our French girl and her friend. Oh, yes, and Tayllor. Tayllor read a poem about her father and why she chooses to call him "Robert" as opposed to "Daddy." The first time that she read it, she was completely disconnected and doing that "spoken word thing." You know what I'm talking about. That style of performing that sounds like crap. I said that she had some really powerful imagery in the piece and that I'd like her to let go of the presentation style and just speak the poem as if she was talking directly to her father. I let her sit down and we brought her back up at the end of the night. I told her to not be afraid to connect to the piece. WOW. She connected and it was so beautiful to watch. She held it together as she read the words and near the end, she paused, clenched her fist by her side, took a breath and finished the piece. "And that's why I can't call you 'daddy.'" The room broke into a standing ovation. She was crying, I was crying, it was yet another Downbeat moment.

So I took that energy from last night, ran about seven miles today, did a lot of writing, met with the Senior VP of Casting at HBO, had a wonderful conversation with her, came home, did some more writing and watched some "UFC Ultimate Fighter."

Talk about a much better day.

That's the power of Downbeat.

I love those darn kids.

If you want to help...

...please BUY HER BOOK!

My mom published a couple of books and she recently ordered more copies for some upcoming speaking engagements that she never got a chance to attend.



So we are selling CONVERSATIONS ON SUCCESS for only $14.95 (that's a 25% discount!). We are making her book available for purchase as a way to help alleviate some of the financial burden. Here's the description:

"Cynthia Hernandez Kolski, professional speaker and author, has been hand-selected through a nationwide search to be featured in a new book on success strategies entitled Conversations On Success, from Insight Publishing, a Tennessee-based publisher. Cynthia joins high profile business personalities Brian Tracy, Wally 'Famous' Amos, and Chick-Fil-A Founder, S. Truett Cathy, along with other leading authorities, to create this collection of content-rich interviews designed to encourage and motivate people from all walks of life to reach for their dreams and strive for success!"

You can learn more by going to her website: www.communicationeducation.com

Please mail your check for $20.00 (includes $5.00 for S/H) to Cynthia Hernandez Kolski, 835 Farnham Lane, Wheaton, IL 60189. Please allow 2-4 weeks for delivery.

We appreciate the unbelievable amount of love and support that we've received.

THANK YOU.

Love,

Chrissy & Joe

A poem for my mom

Hi
My name is Joe Hernandez-Kolski

I met Cindy, oh, I’d say, about 36 years ago
I was brand new to Chicago
I had just arrived and I didn’t know anyone
Cindy was the first person who I met

She looked me in the eyes
And I knew it was love at first sight
She had this infectious energy
This warm embrace
This engaging smile
And she gave me this nickname
“Mijo” which I now know is Spanish for “My Son”
However as a child I looked it up and found out Mijo in English means
“Millet” - a fast-growing cereal plant that is widely grown in warm countries and regions with poor soils
I assumed that “millet” must be a very valuable commodity in Mexico
Because when she called me “mijo”
Confidence replaced doubt
And I was free to conquer mountains

And everyone felt this way in her presence
From young troubled teens in need of guidance
To the police officers trying way too hard to guide them
Her love ran so deep that
Rumor has it
When she was just a young girl
She gave a gift to each boy in my Uncle Joe’s Cub Scout troop
Each one paid him one dollar to fight her and she gave each one of them one black eye
She always did say that the power of touch was healing
This is the woman who held a stranger’s bleeding head in her arms screaming for someone to get her some ice
Ironically when we were standing in front of Mario’s Italian Ice on Taylor Street
This is the woman who was picking up Brown’s Chicken to go when a stranger came in the door and said “Call 911, a homeless man just hurt himself”
Like Superman, she was gone before I could even say, “Mom, where are you going?”
But she always moved faster than the speed of light
She was more powerful than any locomotive
Able to annoy six small siblings in a single bound
I was so in love with this woman
I would give her kisses so hard that she would fall down
I didn’t even get jealous when her new love came around
This young dancer named Christina entered her world and everything changed
But that was fine because Cindy had more than enough love for the two of us
So much love left over that she also had a Sugar Daddy named Phil
As well as countless kids who she adopted as her own
From foreign exchange students
To wayward camp counselors
To members of the clergy

It was sad when our relationship hit the skids during my teen years
She just didn’t understand me
I found myself yelling
“Get out of here!
Leave me alone!
Can I borrow your car?”
So we broke up when I was eighteen
I was going away to college
And we both knew that long distance relationships just don’t work

But she wouldn’t let go
She said that she would always be there for me
(I wouldn’t say she was a stalker but she definitely had stalker tendencies)
I moved to LA to get away and
I got wrapped up in the image of who I was supposed to be and living up to the expectations placed upon me
And when she called me to sing Carly Simon songs
I was so often so busy
Now, I would give anything to just argue with her
“No, Mom, I don’t know Mandy Patinkin and I don’t care who he’s married to.”

I had made the biggest mistake of my life
Deep in my heart I know she was the one and yet I let her go

But sometimes you need to do just that
Because deep in my heart I also know
She will always be with me
Every time life gets tough
I’ll hear her say, “Let go and let God”
Every time someone drives me crazy
I’ll hear her say, “The ones who are the hardest to love are usually the ones who need it the most.”
Every time I watch “I Love Lucy”
I’ll hear her say, “I love that episode.”
And every time I forget to say “thank you” or “please”
I’ll hear her say…nothing...she’ll just glare at me.

Mom I’m gonna miss you
You taught me “focus on the positive and it will multiply”
Release the negative and have faith that the light will soon arrive
Everything happens for a reason
Love destroys the darkness of doubt

Even on my wedding day
You’ll be right next to me I know
You will always be my first true love
And I will always be your mijo.

My mom's influence

Here is a testimony that was delivered at my mom's wake service by a good friend Edward Luna. I feel it's important to share:

I met Cindy by accident in 1991. My brother and I were gang banging pretty hot and heavy at the time with a bunch of guys from the neighborhood. As it turns out, Mrs. Murrillo was trying to get her kids out of the gang and organized a meeting for her son & his friends at her house where a lady from Wright College would talk to them about a program she was teaching. Oddly enough, my brother and I happened to stop by on the day it was scheduled and we were invited in to listen. Eight or ten of us started in the program that Cindy was teaching, called "Teen Power," and in the end I think only four of us made it through the entire program. Cindy was something else...a tiny woman with balls of steel!

Cindy was the first of very few people ever to break through the tough kid I was back then. She knew that all of us just needed attention and a little direction. While going through the program, she would sneak us into the college pool for our own private pool time. Where I learned the hard way that you really aren't supposed to run around the swimming pool, "I slipped and cracked my head open at one of these outings!"

Cindy challenged and counseled me on a thousand issues and subjects over the years. From my marriage, to my divorce, my kids, my successes, failures, good and bad, I always knew she'd keep it real. I always knew she'd be there!

Ever since I was a kid, people found my way of communicating as aggressive and intimidating. Most steered clear or were too afraid to even try. Not Cindy! She dressed the tough guy & his approach up and put it all in a gentler, softer package. She saw an opportunity for her and I to reach out to others. Whenever possible, she would put me in front of other kids and groups to show how change was possible. She had a way of talking you through and "into" anything! At a workshop she did at Motorola, Cindy asked me to speak and said "Ed you'll be talking to 10-20 people, just relax and be you." I walk out on stage to over two hundred people staring at me. Talk about being just a little nervous! She walked me right through it, though, and here we are again.

Cindy taught me how to approach, direct and demand what I want and need from others. A gentle but firm way to encourage others to get things done; to lead or be lead, as long as the mission is accomplished. Cindy was a great woman! As recent as FIVE weeks ago, she was still planning big things! Calling me out and walking me through things once again. I miss her today and will miss her for years to come.

Every time you hear someone say the old cliché, "I want to help! I want to create change even if it's only one person I help!" it's generally all hot air followed by no action. Cindy changed me! I wasn't supposed to be here today. She helped and changed thousands around me!

May God Bless her and please Lord... Be patient with her cause we all know she's already planning the next Big Workshop in heaven!

ED Luna

My godfather's eulogy for my mom

David Barrett's remarks at Cindy's funeral, 2-27-10

Cindy and I never discussed my giving her eulogy. I thought she would outlive me; truthfully, I thought she would take care of me in my old age, even though she was 4 years my senior. I thought she would go on forever, or at least to 95. But Joey and Chrissy told me that she asked me to do it, and I am honored to do so.

We met in South Bend, Indiana. I was reeling from a broken engagement; got involved in a community theatre musical; Cindy was there with Joey. I’m ashamed to admit it, but when I was first around her, she seemed too friendly, too forward. I was standoffish. Cindy later kidded me, “David, you weren't standoffish, you were rude.”

I’ll tell just one story before I speak to other things here. At the end of the run of the play, there was a cast party. Philip was there, but had to get home to the kids and relieve the babysitter. Cast members stayed late. Cindy actually got drunk. This was the only time I would ever see her inebriated. Thinking I should be a gentleman, I insisted that she not drive; that I drive her home. But I realized on the drive home that I didn’t know Philip well yet. How would he react to me delivering his wife home, sloppy drunk?, I worried. I decided I would not take her to the front door of her home. I would let her get out of my car and she would be on her own. My memory is that she did get out of the car, made her way unsteadily toward the house, and I backed out of the driveway and drove home. Cindy’s memory: “David, you virtually pushed me out of the car and without closing the door, raced off.” Philip’s recollection a week later, with great laugher was that…10 seconds before he found his wife stumbling drunk at the front door, he heard car tires peeling rubber and someone racing off into the night.

I know Cindy would want me to say certain things here:

How proud Cindy was to be the daughter of Irene C. Hernandez. How Cindy spoke with love of her late father, Joe.

Cindy, who often entertained me with stories of her childhood adventures with her siblings, was deeply gratified at the way in which her sisters and brothers rallied around her in her time of need. How much she loved Elda, Bill, Irene, Joe, Debbie and Diane. And how much she loved their husbands and wives; and she adored her nieces and nephews. She grieved deeply over the deaths of Tonya and Mark. And she loved many other cousins, aunts, uncles and other relatives.

When Cindy and I talked in recent months in hospital rooms and in telephone calls, she spoke with admiration and gratitude about Philip. She said to me, “Philip has been wonderful.” I’ll just add that it takes quite the partnership to produce Chrissy and Joey. With God’s help, Philip and Cindy created Joey and Chrissy, but, also with God’s help, they shaped their character in their childhood years, their integrity and yes, their senses of humor and their talents. Well done, Cindy. Well done, Philip.

Joey, Chrissy: I knew Cindy very well. I know how proud she was to be your mother. No one on this earth mattered more to her than you. Don’t ever doubt that she was thrilled to have you in her life, that she took delight in your accomplishments and joys, and that she knew in her final days that, whatever difficulties life may bring in the future, you will face them, overcome them with grit and determination and imagination and love. You'll do just great and you'll be just fine. She also would want me to acknowledge before all these people how you were with her, really with her, as she fought cancer.

Cindy would, I know, want me to pay tribute here to Father Michael Ahlstrom. What can I say, Michael? Faithful, faithful friend.

And, speaking of friends, there are dozens, many scores of them here today. I’m proud to be one of them. She made me a part of her family and thank God Philip and Chrissy and Joey did, too. I think you friends of Cindy will identify with what I say here about my friendship with her. Cindy believed in me more than I believed in myself. She put me on a pedestal sometimes when I didn’t really deserve it; but it helped me to be better in dealing with a task at hand, and it helped me to be a better person.

I’m shy. I don’t think Cindy had a shy moment in her life. After bursting through the barriers I had put up, and befriending me, Cindy taught me to reach out more to people. It’s still not easy sometimes, but when I strike up conversations with people and learn of their hopes, dreams, frustrations…when I get to know them, even just for an hour, I know that that has been a gift from Cindy.

Cindy was funny. She had tremendous integrity. Her courage? Wow. The fierceness of her loyalty was a wonder to behold. I didn't much like them, but I found her love of old Hollywood musicals, so endearing. What other friend would telephone me and sing a song from “Peter Pan” or “The King and I”?

But, given the limitations of time, I want to pay tribute to just one great quality of Cindy. And I’ll preface it by saying, Cindy was not perfect. For example, she had a temper. When she was mad at me, oh my gosh, was that rough. When I got the silent treatment from her, I never knew how to respond. I was intimidated by those silences. But whatever few faults she had--if that was a fault--they were outweighed by her many strengths and virtues.

The one I was to emphasize, in closing here today, was the way that she acted toward those who were in need: the elderly, the sick, the frail, the dying, the lonely, the emotionally troubled. Cindy took care of so many people!

I doubt that anyone here knows how many people Cindy literally nursed back to health or nursed in their dying days. I don’t! And she did so with tremendous skill and just the right bedside manner. There may have been some situations in life where Cindy felt a certain insecurity about what to do, but not in those cases. She had been trained as a nurse, but I think she had some special god-given talent that the nursing school simply enhanced. She knew how to talk very directly to a person in a hospital bed or a sick bed, especially what to say to a person who was dying or in danger of dying. She also knew just how to touch, to hold, to embrace that person and make him or her feel loved and less alone.

As important as those skills and that instinct for caring is that she did it so often! She set aside her own work and personal schedules and traveled 3 different times to Alabama in the latter part of my mother’s life to spend a week each time, nursing her back to a better physical/mental state. She took care of Father Michael’s mother. She took care of the loved ones of many of you here today, I’m sure. Sometimes, she and I would talk, I’d say “what are you doing?” and she’d tell me about someone in the hospital or at their home, perhaps out of state, that she had taken care of that day. Never for money, of course.

When I’d hear of the umpteenth person that Cindy had gone to care for, I’d say, “Cindy, you’ll go to straight to Heaven someday.” (We had this conversation a dozen times.) She’d say, “No.” And I’d say, “Yes you will. You’ll go straight to Heaven, and I’ll be serving a thousand-year sentence down in Purgatory. But you’ll bend the rules and throw down some ice cubes for me."

I'm not a person who can quote the Bible word for word, but I can certainly paraphrase the gospels. It's in the Gospel according to Matthew that Jesus says that, at the end of time, he'll gather everyone before him and, to the people on his right, he'll say "Come and enter the Kingdom, which has been prepared for you since the beginning of time…for I was hungry, and you fed me; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; I was naked, and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me." You all know the story. That was Cindy! That, plus the mercy of God, is why I say, "Straight to Heaven!"

Thank you, Cindy, for bringing me into your life and into your family. And, Cindy, I’m going to try to do a better job of following the examples you set for me, partly because this is what Jesus said we should do. But I also have an ulterior motive: when I die, if I don't have a one-way ticket to Paradise, I don’t want to have to wait too, too long in some "connecting station" before I can give you a big hug and a kiss in Heaven. I love you, Cindy. God bless.

A matter of life and death

My mom is dying. I can't believe that I'm actually writing those words, let alone in my blog of all places. But there definitely is something to the anonymity of blogs, sending words out into the vast ether of the internet.

I am about to fall asleep in the hospital on a couch next to her bed. She's sleeping peacefully, thanks to 4mg of dilaudid. At 62 years old, I did not expect to be dealing with my mother's death anytime soon. But the cancer seems unstoppable.

I slept an hour and a half, flew standby at 6am, slept a bit on the plane, then arrived to the hospital and numerous numerous (and numerous) people. It was like a clown car in her room, countless people coming in and out. Sometimes she was aware and awake but most of the time she was asleep.

I can't even put thoughts together at this point, I'm so tired from traveling.

All that I really wanna say is, please give some love to your mother and take advantage of the time that you have with her. There are trips that we were supposed to take that I kept postponing and now I missed out. There were things I wanted to discuss and we can't even do that anymore. She can barely form sentences anymore.

Let go of the past. Just love in the present.

Love,

Joe

Not your typical Christmas

I'm sitting here on the 6th floor of Loyola Hospital outside of my mother's room. It's been a couple of very difficult weeks. I'm always apprehensive about blogs. They seem so self-centered to me. Who cares what I'm thinking and dealing with? Everyone's got their own lives and their own issues. But I think we should all believe that we all deserve to be heard and listened to. And yes, somehow, the thought of writing and just putting it out there sounds therapeutic right about now.

So, yes, my mother has cancer. It's been very devastating. But I'm living the way that she taught us. Not to get down and just deal with what's thrown at us. She seems to be doing very well right about now. The radiation is taking care of the tumor that's on her spine and she's slowly able to move again. I have my own thoughts about what's causing her immobility but that's a whole other story.

I just wanna write without thinking right now. First of all, I love my Aunt Betty. I think it's so fantastic how she's been at my mother's side taking care of her. My Aunt Betty is someone who I've never really known until these past couple of weeks. She's truly a sweet and honest woman. She was telling me how she used to work at Dominick's in the meat department. She worked there for something like twenty years. She had her regular clients who would come every week and she explained, "For example, I had this one guy who would come at 8am every Saturday. So every week, around 7:30am, I would slice his meat and his cheese and have it ready for him so he wouldn't have to stand in line." That's my aunt in a nutshell. I couldn't say "I love you" enough times and how much I appreciated all of her help. I came back to my mom's condo last night and she was sitting in my mother's bedroom watching the tiny TV next to her bed. I asked her why she didn't watch the big TV in my mom's office and she said, "I don't know how to work it." I told her that I could turn it on for her and she said, "No, it's okay. This is the TV that I watch with your mom." And she sat there, in the chair next to my mom's bed, even though my mom wasn't there.

Side note: I saw "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" and "Apocalypto" the last couple of nights. GREAT FREAKIN' MOVIES!! More on those later.

Please keep my mom in your prayers.

Love,

Joe