Past Reflections

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May 31, 2009 - STANDING ON A MOTHER'S SHOULDERS

by Father Edward L. Beck, C.P.

All the speculation about the new Supreme Court Justice nominee recently came to an end as Sonia Sotomayor stepped in front of the microphone and thanked her 81 year old mother Celina for enabling her to be standing beside the President of the United States. Sonia remarked, "I've often said that I’m all that I am because of her, and I am only half the woman she is." Standing on the shoulders of others is the way Judge Sotomayor described her success. And her mother's shoulders were pretty strong. A woman who came from a poor farming community in Puerto Rico to a housing project in the East Bronx to raise her two children alone after her husband died of a heart attack. She struggled to provide for them and to send them to Catholic schools. Sonia went on to Princeton University and then Yale Law School, and her brother Juan to NYU Medical School. Amazing what one woman with strong shoulders can do. And the mother, Celina's, explanation: "I don’t know what I did. I was just there." But the word JUST doesn't fit in that sentence. Because sometimes being there is everything. I know because I had parents who were too. This Supreme Court Justice nominee is testimony to what love and sacrifice can produce even amidst the greatest obstacles. And it's less about how big our shoulders are and more about our willingness to let others stand on them. Celina Sotomayor, felicidades. And thanks for the inspiration.