{"id":158,"date":"2017-09-29T14:29:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-29T14:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/2017\/09\/29\/too-far-to-help\/"},"modified":"2017-09-29T14:29:00","modified_gmt":"2017-09-29T14:29:00","slug":"too-far-to-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/2017\/09\/29\/too-far-to-help\/","title":{"rendered":"Too Far to Help"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>I have heard and seen my mom cry many a times in the last 40 years. I&#8217;ve been responsible for some of her tears.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>This past weekend she broke down long-distance on the phone but her sobs were much different from those I&#8217;ve witnessed&#8230;but still recognized. From a file buried deep in my memory bank I recalled a moment of sadness of hers from over 30 years ago. Late one night I awoke and heard some rustling near my bed. We hadn&#8217;t had power for days and I had come accustomed to the darkness so I spotted her faint silhouette quickly. There in her cot she cried. It was silent but distinct and I got the feeling that if my sisters were not sleeping nearby it would have been much much louder.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Last Sunday on the phone this woman I&#8217;ve known all my life tried her hardest not to crack but couldn&#8217;t help herself. Her Mexico house has intermittent power, my grandmother (who she&#8217;s caring after) had a hard fall, she got some odd news from a doctor, there&#8217;s no water readily available to her neighborhood and a boy up the street from her died when a light-pole fell. The weight of all this is resting heavy on her shoulders and she had to reach out somehow.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It was hard to hear her. Harder to know that all I could do was just listen and give her what little reassurances I could. I feel like I did that night when I was a kid&#8230;not able to help my mom when she needs me most.<o:p><\/o:p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have heard and seen my mom cry many a times in the last 40 years. I&#8217;ve been responsible for some of her tears.&nbsp; This past weekend she broke down long-distance on the phone but her sobs were much different from those I&#8217;ve witnessed&#8230;but still recognized. From a file buried deep in my memory bank &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/2017\/09\/29\/too-far-to-help\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Too Far to Help&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[104,519,319,325,518],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}