About 2 years after we first met, my wife and I married, but before we did, she told me she had to go to California and asked me if I would go with her. I remember it like it was just yesterday. I didn't even let her finish the sentence when I answered "YES!" Flash forward to 2017 and we are now Californians. Things have a way of materializing if you keep a focused mind on it. I've always wanted to have a family of my own and here I stand today with just that. I'm completely grateful for that and more, like the time when I went back to the Dominican Republic on vacation with my mom and sister.

It was a summer vacation, one of many I had taken courtesy of my mom. I can't remember the exact amount of time we spent there. It could've been a month, but it felt like a lifetime. I was 12 years old and I remember packing my sketchbooks and comics so I could draw on the plane. All this in case I ran into my cousin, the one who introduced me to comic book characters like Batman and Superman. I remember feeling the humid heat and the sun beating down on me and stronger than in New Yok, but it felt good. It felt like home. After a couple of days meeting up with my mom's side of the family, we visited my father's mother, "Abuela". It was at her house that I caught up with my cousin. It had been about 5 years since I'd seen him. He was excited to see me, but I was more excited to show him my drawings how much I have learned when it came to drawing. I could not contain my excitement, but that was soon snuffed out like a birthday candle when I asked him if I could see HIS work, to which he said: "I don't draw anymore." My jaw dropped in disbelief. "How could this be?", I thought. "You inspired me to draw and now you don't? What does this mean for me?" "Will I give it up too?" I think he noticed my disappointment but he did compliment my art and told me I probably drew better than he did. I never did give up drawing.