Mother and Daughter Part 2

Emmy and Hilda discuss two of the people who had the biggest impact on both their lives — Kiko and Mami Licha — and unearth the root causes of cycles of violence and addiction in their lives. They then reflect on their paths to recovery, and the renewed bond that was built along the way.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi listeners, that's Emilia. As a special bonus to Crumbs,
I'm interviewing people close to me who were with me
throughout the journey, will reflect on life, my search for love,
and the impact the show had on them. This is
part two of my conversation with my mom Ilda. The
second half is about moments that left us forever changed,

(00:21):
moments that hurt more than we could have imagined, and
moments of healing, moments that ultimately made us stronger. If
you haven't heard the show yet, don't wait. Head back
to the feet and start the journey from step one.
We'll be here when you're done. What was your relationship

(00:44):
with Kiko? Like you've heard it in my first episode
you have, you know what my recollection of it was.
And it's hard to explain to someone because I don't
reason Chico. I don't hate him. He was like the
only father figure I had growing up. Well, look Kiko.

(01:06):
Everybody likes Kiko. Your grandmother loved him, Everyone in the
family loves him. Kicks a really pretty good person. He's
got a great kick. Was the type of person that
he'll beat you up and then help you up and
take you to the hospital because he just lit your
your face open and I have to drive him and

(01:27):
this guy this is a true story, more than once
it happened. You know. That's who Kiko is. He'll rob you,
you know, but he'll leave you a few bucks or
you could re up for you know, so he could
come rob you again. That's who he is. This is gold. Um.

(01:48):
So with Keiko and I, it was he was the
love of my life from that first day, and I
was the love of his life. But like said, he
had no people skills. I was used to throwing my fits,
you know, and he wasn't going to put up with
my fits. And so we fought and it got physical

(02:11):
real quick. He got ugly. They got very ugly, you know, um,
right before our eyes. Right yeah. But he was good
to you. He was a great dad to your sisters.

(02:35):
He was And we heard that our lunch of story,
we the go karts story, Like that's really precious memory
that I have of Giko. And you know, he did
do a lot of things for us. It's okay, So
Ko's new in our lives. We're living in del soul.
What happened the morning of that arrest, So the morning

(02:59):
of that arrendst what what really happened there? There was
a different than how I remember. Yes, it was sort
of you know a little yeah, but it was different.
We weren't under surveillance. What happened is your grandmother had

(03:19):
runners for her. She had people that would go and
fill up their cars with cocaine or whatever and cross it.
And this particular morning, um, this man that she called
her friend. And I would always tell her, Mom, don't
bring these people to your house. You know, you don't

(03:42):
let them know where. You know. Oh, that's you know,
my good friend. He's he's you know, trustworthy. Yes, all right.
So this morning, this man gets arrested at the border
with three hundred and forty seven keylos of cocaine. And
she comes home it's maybe five am or whatever, and

(04:05):
she knocks on my door in the room. She says,
that's all she said. And I knew as she meant,
and I told her leave, leave to Mexico, just leave
right now. She's like, are you crazy? I can't leave.
I have to wait till my lawyer gets there so
he can get him out. I'm like, oh Mom, no, what, okay, whatever,

(04:27):
do whatever, because now I'm I'm awake, right, I gotta
focus on my fix or whatever. So that's all I
remember saying to her, and he called her. He called
her on the phone and she said, don't worry. As
soon as my attorney gets here, we're getting you out
of there. And she was being recorded the whole time.

(04:50):
And that's all it took. That phone call was enough
for them to go get an warrant to search the
house to arrest all of us. We all went to
got arrested that day. We all took off in different
cars and never came back. Only your grandmother, your Diajos
and the maid stayed at the house wondering why we
never returned. So I only remember a little bit of

(05:18):
that morning. Right, Guess who's taking me in elementary school? Yes?
Us getting stopped detectives walking me into the office. Yes,
on my elementary school. When I wrote my book. I
called him because Sina got arrested with my grandma. Yeah,

(05:42):
and she told me that they were leaving. They left
the house, but first my Mia said, Mama, we're gonna
go get pick come up from school. Yes, they were
on their way to your school. I left to the
method on clinic with Kiko has Sous left to take
you to school, and we never came back. So they
started getting suspicious and your grandma said, let's go get

(06:06):
in the car. They got she told the maid to
get in the carp was home from school that day sick,
and they said, let's go get wet from school first.
We're leaving. You guys were leaving to Mexico. So my
grandmother got arrested on her way to pick you outside
of my elementary school, about a block away. Yes, I

(06:30):
remember coming out of school that day because they let
me stay there the whole day and my nana was
picking me up. They let me call your nana from
from the office. The police station where they had us
wasn't even a police station. It was like a little
undercover room by the border. And they were standing right

(06:57):
next to me and said, be careful what you say,
or we're ending the all. So I just told her,
can you pick up who from school? She said, okay,
that was it. She knew, she knew. When I tell

(07:18):
this story, I talked about the stay as the day
that my life changed forever. H h. At seven years old,

(07:45):
I had no idea of all the pain and darkness
that was coming my way. M hmm. I didn't think okay.
I had fallen into a hole, and I didn't think
I was ever getting out. M. I kind of thought

(08:13):
that when we went to a lahatta everything was okay
and then we would all be okay, you know. Thinking
about it now, when I had I was a band
aid MHM. And I love those memories that we haven't
we hand like, that's when I feel I really got
to know you, and I have really amazing memories of you.

(08:41):
But losing my Mileachat for me was the worst part.
I lost my Leacha twice M and I'm still not
over it. M That woman was everything to me. I

(09:09):
lost her too. Something happened to you after she left
because you became my caregiver. It says if all of
a sudden you told yourself, I gotta step up and
take care of my mom, as if you knew she

(09:32):
wasn't coming back and someone had to look out for me,
because you did. Do you remember that? Tell me about
that you did everything for me. Like I would wake
up in the morning, Oh shit, it's okay, MoMA. I
had breakfast already, I'm ready for school. I made my lunch,

(09:57):
I made my sister's lunches. Okay, things like that. I mean,
you would even help pick up my clothes. That that
you just described as why I always feel like I
never had a childhood. I always felt like I had

(10:23):
to take care of someone. If it wasn't new, it
was Andrea or Dan yell our age, you know. And
that's I think where the resentment started, because I had
these dreams, these aspirations, and I had to always put
my wants and my needs to decide to take care
of whatever it was. And then you grew up and

(10:51):
all those resentments came out. Do you remember the last
time we spoke before your transition? O, No, I don't.
I probably blocked it out. So your grandma was already

(11:11):
back from prison and you came over. You were you
didn't live with us. I don't remember everything because I
was so fucking high. But you were very mad at me.
You were very mad at me, and I try to
go in the room and you said, no, come here.

(11:35):
You were going to call the police to get me
out of there. Either you found some paraphinally in the
bathroom or some drugs or something there, and you said
you were just tired of my disrespect. That was your
grandmother's house. And you just started telling me how you
really felt about me. I remember trying to climb out

(11:58):
the window and you weren't setting it happened, and that's
the last time I saw you, and I saw my son.
That's the last time I saw my son. And for
a while I had a resentment towards you, because I

(12:22):
felt like, how dare you do this transition? And I
didn't get to say goodbye to my son and he's Connell,
never see him again. You know. It's selfish drug addict talking,
you know. You know, I don't remember. This event. Sounds
like a very big event that hurt you a lot.

(12:43):
I'm sorry. I know that I was dealing with my
own demons. I was I sober yet I don't remember.
But don't be sorry for for that. I mean, the

(13:05):
old me would have said, yeah, you were pretty funned
up to me that day. How dare you talk to
me that way? I'm your mom. But you know what,
I'm glad you said what you said, because all of
that was the beginning of the change in me, you know,

(13:26):
and it was the ending of who you were. I
feel like it was a step towards your transition. You
had to leave all that ship out, you know, get
it out, if that makes any sense. I don't remember
that story where I don't remember that event, but it

(13:47):
sounds like something I would have done. I was so
recent flat you for everything seem I don't think I
was sober at the time. I had a lot of
resentment towards you because I was always picking up after you.

(14:08):
I mean, I put my life on hold to raise
my sisters, and that was very difficult, and we went
through things together that weren't ideal. But I was going
to make it work, and I was going to I
was going to raise them, and I was going to

(14:29):
put them through school, and I was going to make
sure that they were provided for whatever it took and
keep them safe. And I remember thinking I had to
keep them safe from you, and you did. I remember
the last chance you gave me. Do you remember one
of the times I got out of the federal prison

(14:52):
and you had a surprise for me. You had rented
an apartment, furnished it, and you said, we're all going
to live to get other, We're going to be a
happy family. And it worked for a minute. I got
a job at a taco shop and and that's when
my addiction really kicked in my alcoholism. I remember that

(15:18):
I did some things that I'm not proud of. I'm
a blackout drinker. I hate you. You experimented with myth.
I was hoping we wouldn't talk about that. Let's talk
about that. Anyone out ex somewhere experimented with meth for

(15:43):
the first time. It wasn't the first time, okay, I
didn't know. That was the first time I knew of it.
Emmy came home and was very high. So for the
next two or three days, I went out and Boughtle
Decca cards to sit there and play cards with you
and just stay up with you as much as we could.

(16:06):
Between Andrea, one of your friends, and me, we alternated.
That's the recollection I have. I almost killed myself on math. Yeah.
I remember I went into a psychosis and that was
the last time I did meth. Need Less say, I

(16:29):
didn't like what it did to me, but I still
did other stuff. I was sober. I remember. I remember
when I was coming down from that psychosis. Coming out
of that psychosis, I prayed. I said a prayer and said, God, please,
if you let me be back to normal, because I

(16:50):
thought that in my psychosis. I thought that my organs
had been rearranged for some reason. See it's a really
embarrassing story. And I remember praying saying, God, if you
just let me come out of this one, I won't
ever do any drugs again. And I stayed sober for

(17:15):
thirty days on my own, and then just my alcoholism
just took me down. It was all down after that.
I got sober for the first time in two thousand
and six and relapse after ten months of sobriety. The

(17:40):
last time that I got sober it wasn't two thousand seven,
and that's when I started taking a lot of inventory
on myself, and at about a year sober, year and

(18:03):
a half, I made the decision to transition. So tell
me what was that like for you finding that out? Well,
like I said earlier, the selfish drug attic in me

(18:27):
was like, how could you do that to me? How
can you take my son away? Like I knew nothing
of it. All of a sudden, your grandmother told me,
and I called you on the phone and I spoke
with you, and then you came over for the first
time and I saw you. And it wasn't until I

(18:51):
started my own recovery. You know that my thinking process changed.
But you talked to me a little bit, but not
not too much. You were starting to talk to me
after that incident in the bedroom. It wasn't until I

(19:12):
went to prison for the last, the last time, that
you became like you were always there for me, you
always to care me, but this time you were more
of a support group for me. You know what year
did you go to prison? The last time was in

(19:32):
two thousand twelve, but when you had your transition, I
believe it was why I went in two five and
two thousand and seven. I believe too. So the last
time you went to prison, which was in two thousand twelve,

(19:58):
Monica passed in two thousand twelve of and you were
in prison. Yeah, she passed away like two months or
three months after I got arrested. I know that was
hard for you. Yeah, it was hard for all of us,
but you're not being able to be there, like I

(20:22):
remember how much that hurt me. I couldn't imagine if
it hurt if her loss hurt me as much as
it did. I couldn't imagine how much you were affected
being incarcerated. And I think because of that, I felt

(20:42):
like I had to be there for you. I felt
like I had the obligation. Maybe not obligation, maybe I
wanted to do that for you. I wanted to be
some form of support for you because I can't imagine
and what it's like not being able to spend the

(21:03):
last days with your loved one because you're in jail
or in prison. I feel I feel like it started
maybe as an obligation because you'd always been there for
me and you felt bad, but because I was about
to start my own journey and recovery, it turned into
something else. We started building a bond, We started trusting

(21:25):
each of what you started trusting me. The relationships started changing.
I entered a drug program in prison, and there was
just a change. But yeah, I remember you. You even
went to court asking the judge to please let me
go out to the funeral. Do you remember that? And

(21:48):
the judge said, no, she's gonna go straight to get
some heroin if I let her out of here. Would
you probably? I mean, I've been there. I was it't
well enough, you know. Maybe I had My body was
detox but not my mind. And with the pain of

(22:09):
losing my mother, I'm sure that that's how I would
have wanted to numb that pain. So at what point
in your life do you decide you want to get clean?
And why after all these years? I don't know. I

(22:37):
think this last time was really rough on me physically.
I mean I was in and out of the hospital.
I was very sick. But apart from that, my mother
died and I was afraid. I was sad I was
I don't know. I honestly don't know how to answer that.

(22:58):
But the my thing in process started to change, and
I think I started thinking stuff like, I wonder how
Emmy's feeling right now? Man, I want to be there
for Adrian. Adrian was only what a little boy when
she died, and she's all he knew, just like it

(23:19):
was with you. And I started thinking about stuff like that,
you know, I need to be there for him. And
my dad's old. What's going to happen with my dad?
And and I entered that drug program that helped me
a lot. I started surrounding myself with with people that

(23:40):
were in recovery, talking to them, listening to what they
had to say. And I didn't have the desire to
get out and look for all these other people anymore.
I had completely given up hope. I was over it,

(24:00):
so many promises always broken. I had already accepted that
you were going to be active in your addition always.
And also I was in my own program of recovery.
I had done a lot of healing in the work

(24:22):
that I did there, and I understood that you had
a higher power that took care of you and I
had mine. Because I think when I first got sober,
I felt like, and you've experienced this, like when I

(24:44):
was newly sober, it was like, mom, this is what
you have to do. You do it like this like that,
not very you know. I was very like, oh my God, yes, never.
And then like as I grew in my own recovery,
I like, uh right, I had to trust the process
and let God take over. Yeah. I think that's exactly

(25:08):
what happened. So you're coming out of prison clean and
remaining clean. Was this huge opportunity for us to have
this beautiful relationship that we have today. I remember being

(25:28):
in prison talking to you on the phone, and you
would tell me how your life was going, and you
told me about Adam, and I remember you told me
about the time that about his parents. They were doctors,
you were nervous about meeting his parents and what were
you going to say about your family? And I was

(25:51):
nervous too. I felt bad, like like because you were
in prison at the time. I was in prison, and
and I wanted all about to tell you it's going
to be different now, and you don't have to worry
about that anymore, and and and just hold them off
until I get there, and and and they'll be able
to meet and new me and this and that. But
like you said so many promises, I couldn't do that

(26:13):
to you anymore because I was learning that that wasn't
the way I had to show you, right, And so
I remember joking about it and I said, well, just
tell them that I'm a phlebotomist. Do you remember that?
That was my answer. I didn't know what to say,
you know. But slowly our relationships started growing, we started

(26:36):
bonding a little more. I got out of prison and
they sent me on a greyhound and it stopped in
l A and you were there. I remember picking you up. Yeah,
you had some clothes for me. And you didn't leave
with me, right because it was like a little layover

(26:58):
st Yes, but you were there like you always were.
And I'm sure you were just like hug hug my mom. Here,
I got you some things, you know, all right, bye,
I was shopping for you, Yeah, I remember. Do you
know that I still have one of those T shirts.
I don't use it anymore, but I have it. But um, slowly,

(27:27):
I think maybe you started to see a difference, and
and I was interested in getting to know you. You know,
I was always so proud of you, like you were
my my emmy, my protector. But I didn't want you

(27:47):
to be that anymore. I wanted to take care of
you now or just show you that you didn't have
to worry about me, if anything, you know, And that
was my main goal, to just, one step at a time,
show my kids that they don't have to worry about
me anymore. I've told you this before, you know, And

(28:13):
I'm very proud of who you are. You're a beautiful woman,
you know. And if I could change your childhood, I would,
you know, if there's if there was any way that
I could change all the hurt and pain that I
cost you, you know that I would. And we've talked

(28:35):
about this before, but I'm so grateful for this chance
that we have now to have this relationship. You know.
I wouldn't trade that for nothing, because some people don't
get that. You know, a lot of the people that
I hung out with are dead or living under that
bridge by the Pao that we talked about, and that's

(28:58):
not me. You know, those Christmas is that you talked
about making that the mal is and matching pajamas are
like the best. I look forward to that one day
a year. You know that it's a big deal for
me for us to get together, you know, And I
love how it went from the very first Christmas when

(29:19):
you were still a little uncomfortable, unsure. I love how
it's our relationship has grown and how strong it is now.
I don't know. Just thank you for always for not

(29:41):
giving up on me, even though you said you did,
you didn't, because you're a big part of why I'm
here today sober. I love. I love a relationship to mom.
I love you. I love you too. That was me

(30:04):
and my mom. Tune in next week for one last
bonus episode. I'll be talking with my best friend Dana
and we dig into one of my more significant heartbreaks.
And that's where I think I hated him because I
felt like he was stringing you along, and I remember
thinking while I was listening that how much time has

(30:25):
gone by? Here a month, six weeks, eight weeks, and
you're still in um. There's still no closure to the situation,
as if you're even going to have a second date.
And I remember thinking, like, what has come back? That's
next week on Crumbs, Thanks for listening. Crumbs is the

(30:54):
production of My Heart Radios Michael podcast Network in association
with Trojan Horse. It's produced by Margaret Catcher and and
edited by Jasmine Rometto and Alex Fumeto. Original music by
Daniel Peter Schmidt and engineering by Manuel Executive produced by

(31:14):
Giants and Conno Burn for I Heart, Alex Fumeto for
Trojan Horse, Joshua Weinstein, Jasmine Rometo, cal and me Emio
LEA special thanks to Monissa Hendrix, Fernand Estrada and Sara Mota.
Listen to Crumbs on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

(31:38):
or wherever you get your podcasts.