Honoring a Mother for Her Struggle to Survive and Her Generosity

Cristina Becerra wanted to be a good mother but she carried an enemy inside that wouldn’t let her. It sapped her energy and her milk and was eating away at the very essence of her motherhood.

She was expecting her second son two years ago in circumstances that were far from ideal. She wasn’t married, she had no close family nearby and no maternity leave from work. As her pregnancy progressed, the Santa Ana resident was forced to give up her job as a dental assistant.

Then her real problems started. In her eighth month, Cristina felt a hard mass in one breast. Not a lump, but more like a swollen vein. Perhaps an enlarged gland, she said the doctors thought at first.

She gave birth to a healthy boy, Alejandro, but breast-feeding was extremely painful. And the milk just wouldn’t flow. Doctors then thought she had an infection, she said, and she took antibiotics for four months.

Finally, the doctors identified the enemy that could not be subdued with hot compresses or killed with pills. It was breast cancer, a disease that almost cost two boys their mother.

The people who know Cristina say she took the news with surprising equanimity. They’re also impressed by the strength this small immigrant woman displayed during the dark months that followed. Her treatment became a nightmare of complications--a mastectomy, then hemorrhaging, more surgery, then transfusions and two weeks in intensive care. She later developed dangerous swelling of her stomach where she was sliced from side to side for tissue used in reconstructive surgery.

After her release from the hospital, her two sons were taken to live with their uncles near Stockton. Cristina then started seven weeks of lonely radiation treatment, sharing an apartment building in Los Angeles with other patients who enjoyed regular visits from their husbands and children.

Her baby was 6 months old and barely crawling when they separated. He was walking and 11 months when they reunited. Harsh medicine for a mother who had diligently attended prenatal classes to learn how to care for herself and how to nurture her newborn.

But Cristina says she doesn’t feel traumatized by her disfiguring surgery and her near death. She was just dead set on surviving so she could get back to being the mother her boys needed.

Cristina, who speaks in sweet tones but admits she has a temper, says it took determination. Coraje, she said in Spanish. That word can mean anger, but it also means courage or fortitude.

“None of us are really alone,” said Cristina, who has also worked as a hair stylist and retail cashier. “There are many women who’ve gone through the same thing. . . . It’s not easy, but I’m alive and I’m learning.”

Today, Cristina, 39, will be one of three women named Mother of the Year by M.O.M.S. Resource Center, the nonprofit agency that helped her through her pregnancy and illness. At a Mother’s Day luncheon today, Cristina will share the spotlight with Orange County Supervisor Cynthia Coad and court interpreter Anita Prietto, both of whom have raised seven children.

Cristina is being honored for her struggle to survive and her generous spirit. After completing her own prenatal program, she started volunteering to help other mothers through the agency’s buddy program called Amigas y Mamas, Friends and Mothers. She resumed her volunteer work after her cancer treatment and is currently helping a young, expectant mother diagnosed with uterine cancer.

There’s a lot to learn from the way Cristina handled her own ordeal.

“She doesn’t feel sorry for herself; she doesn’t get into that pity mode,” said Yvette Bojorquez, program director of M.O.M.S., which offers free services to low-income mothers. “She just continues to move forward.”

Bojorquez, who is both a nurse and a nun, frequently visited Cristina so she would have somebody to “walk with her” while she fought her disease. She’d drive to L.A. and take her to dinner, or they’d go for a drive into the Hollywood Hills so Cristina could see the twinkling lights of the city below.

Bojorquez nominated Cristina for today’s honor. Supervisor Coad is scheduled to deliver the luncheon’s keynote address. That’s lofty company for a woman who moved here from Mexico 10 years ago.

Cristina hails from Talpa, a town in Jalisco that draws tourists and pilgrims devoted to an image of the Virgin Mary kept in the local church. La Virgen de Talpa is said to perform miracles and Cristina prayed to her during her illness.

Cristina’s cancer is in remission. She now lives with her boys in a plain, two-bedroom apartment in a well-kept complex north of the Santa Ana Civic Center. Cristina leaves her children with a baby sitter before catching the bus to her job, caring for an elderly disabled woman and her husband.

Now there are times, you can imagine, when Cristina wants to take it easy after work and just do nothing. But she can’t. After a day of cooking, cleaning and tending to others, she comes home for more of the same with her two boys.

Who else will cook their dinner and read books to them before bedtime?

Cristina used to like to dance. That’s how she met the father of the boys. Now her outings are a walk to the park or a lunch at the Burger King so the kids can use the fast-food playground. Occasionally, they splurge on dinner at Sizzler or Chuck E Cheese’s.

As a pair, the boys are a handful. Carlos, the elder, is a bright and articulate 5-year-old, though a tad overactive.

Mom is constantly shushing Carlos and threatening punishment. Get down from there. Don’t hit your brother. Turn off the television. Stop making that noise.

Between interruptions, I asked Cristina how she plans to spend Mother’s Day, which in Mexico is always celebrated May 10.

“Like any other day,” she said. “For me, holidays pass by without notice. I don’t have anybody to celebrate Mother’s Day.”

Carlos started to tug at my tie, which I removed and placed over his neck. He has ties too, he says. He wears them with a white shirt and blue shorts when his mother takes him to Mass on Sundays.

I squeezed in another question for his mother. What advice do you give women facing personal challenges?

Keep in mind, she said: Many challenges are difficult but not impossible to overcome. What’s needed most is willpower.

By now, both of the boys have climbed up on her lap. Mom reminded Carlos that he learned to say the rosary when he was living with his uncle. The boy turned quiet, his hands folded on the table in front of me. Then he offered a rapid recitation of the prayer he learned to say at night while he was away from his mother.

Angelito de mi guarda, no me desampares ni de noche ni de dia. No me dejes solo porque me perderia.

“Guardian angel, don’t abandon me neither by night nor by day. Don’t leave me alone for I would be lost.”

Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesday and Saturday. Readers can reach Gurza at (714) 966-7712 or agustin.gurza@latimes.com.