Boca Raton — Boca Raton is one of the wealthiest cities in Florida, but even along its golden sands, people still get stuck in fiscal undertows.
“I caught myself, like, worrying about things that I feel like no kid really should,” 26-year-old Ana Duarte told CBS News. “…Like finances and housing and where I was going to lay my head down that night.”
As a child, Ana says she and her mother were homeless, struggling and constantly moving.
“She always wanted a home,” said Anette Duarte, Ana’s mother. “She always asked me for home…We went through very rough times.”
Anette worked long hours as a maid and took on other odd jobs. But she always felt that at least they had each other — the two of them against the world.
Until high school, that is, when Ana started running out of patience and grace. She turned bitter, beginning to blame her mother for all those years of struggle. Ana eventually left home.
“She would always get mad at me, she think I didn’t care,” Anette said. “And I did care. But my hands were so tied up that I couldn’t do it.”
“For my mom it was, like, torture,” Ana said. “But there was no other option, because I didn’t want to keep living these patterns. I wanted to build my life.”
Which she did. Ana graduated from Florida Atlantic University with a degree in social work and got a job with Food for the Poor, an international Christian relief organization.
She also got her first real apartment, which she told Anette about immediately.
“I called her up,” Ana said. “And I was just like, ‘So I have an apartment. It’s two-bedroom, two-bath. Would you like to come live with me?'”
Ana even gave her mother the master bedroom.
“She not even saying anything,” Ana said of Anette when she first saw the master bedroom. “She’s just looking around and like, ‘Woah, I have a bed.'”
Anette had never had her own bedroom before.
“Yeah, it’s something that’s going to stay [with me] for the rest of my life,” Anette said. “And every time I look at her I know.”
Mother’s Day celebrates the deepest love on Earth. But it’s important to remember that the day isn’t just about rewarding your mom for what she’s done. It’s about recognizing that she did everything she could.
