What Mom Didn't Guess
Correspondent Steve Hartman just goes wherever a dart hits and chooses a person at random while flipping through a local phonebook.
He says he hates to admit it, but every time he pulls into a town, he gets scared — that this random person won't have anything important to say.
When am I going to learn? asks Hartman.
Here's his story from Fort Stockton, Texas, where he met the Mireles family.
"I'm hoping and praying to God that this will help somebody else," Gloria Mireles says.
Mireles is a devout Catholic. She raised seven kids, and her incredible story is about the son she almost lost to suicide and the conversation they had afterward that turned his life around.
"I would not have gone on with my life," says her son Frankie. "I probably would have ended it."
It all started when Frankie Mireles was in high school. Bullies used to beat on him because he was different — they even broke his leg once.
Then one day, depressed and confused, Frankie swallowed a whole bottle of pills and came just a few tablets short of escaping for good.
When he woke up two days later, Gloria Mireles asked him why, was it just the bullies, or was there something more?
Frankie didn't say a word, not for months.
Recalls Gloria Mireles, "It was a Sunday, and we were having dinner as usual, you know, around the table. Everybody got up and left."
"And he sat there and goes, 'Mom, I need to talk to you.' I turned around and go, 'Go ahead, mi hijo, I'm listening. Tell me, mi hijo.' He goes, 'I'm gay, Mom,' " she continues.
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"She just looked at me. And I'll never forget this day. There were tears in her eyes when she said, 'You're my son; I love you.' " And she said, 'That's all that matters,' " Frankie says.
And Frankie says that sentence was all he needed. But the conversation wasn't over.
"Whoever made fun of you, show them; show them you can be somebody better… Show them," Gloria Mireles says. "And he has done it."
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| Frankie and Gloria Mireles |
Frankie stuck it out through high school, went on to college and got a good job. And he credits his mother's acceptance for all of it.
So even though this town wasn't kind to him — even though he grew up dirt poor, he says, he is convinced God put him in the very best place on Earth.
"You don't change your kids. You don't. You love them for what they are," Gloria Mireles says.
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