Tag Archives: writing

Happy 2026: Now Let’s Get to Work!

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Recent studies increasingly demonstrate that working in later years is beneficial for maintaining cognitive functioning including memory, mental health, and physical functioning.

~National Institutes of Health, 2013

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Making a New Year’s resolution never really appealed to me. I stubbornly refuse to participate in the annual tradition of promising to do something that may or may not happen. A New Year’s resolution is a delusion of grandeur that usually and ultimately results in disappointment and self-judgment. The most common promises include: I’ll go to the gym everyday. I’ll lose weight. No more fast food. Church every Sunday.

These commitments are hard to keep. I’d rather not make them.

Twenty-two years ago, I learned how to write a Personal Vision and Mission Statement while participating in an executive training program. The statement looks like the outline students are supposed to prepare before writing a term paper in English composition class. Here’s how it works: The vision is like a thesis statement and the mission provides the main points and body of evidence for the essay. Goals and objectives fill in the detail.

I first used the model to create a game plan for my career. I updated it on an annual basis after analyzing the previous year’s goals and objectives. It worked like magic. Within two years, I achieved a professional stature that was unimaginable as a kid or college student. After my 2010 medical crisis, I reworked the statement and began updating it annually to manage heart failure and my personal life. It worked like a charm. I’m still alive and kicking.

For the past five years, managing my transplant and work activities has been pretty stable. I just had to make made minor adjustments to my Personal Vision and Mission Statement. Last year, I decided to retire from the Latino Leadership Alliance Academy (LLA) after 21 years working on my passion project. I also completed my work for the Hispanic Foundation for Education (TFHE) in 2025 after eleven years as a consultant. Both changes left a big hole in my personal vision and mission. 

Although I effectively retired after the heart transplant in 2020, facilitating the LLA Academy and supporting TFHE student leadership activities were big parts of my personal vision and mission. As a recovering workaholic, I truly believe that work is important to maintain physical and mental health.

A 2013 National Institutes of Health (NIH) report corroborates “that working in later years is beneficial.” Of course, like any compulsive behavior, learning moderation is the key. The NIH report recommends that as well. Since my number one priority is to stay healthy for my family, some work activities, in moderation of course, will be part of my vision and mission. I’ve identified a couple of projects to fill the void left after stepping away from longtime passion projects.

I hadn’t shared this most intimate working document until I posted my 2020 Personal Vision and Mission Statement on this blog six years ago. Since then, I’ve used it as a learning tool for LLA Academy participants. Today, I put myself on blast again by sharing my vision and mission to inspire others to turn New Year’s resolutions into action plans and give some hope to those facing life’s challenges. Updating my Personal Vision and Mission Statement for 2026 required some thought to address changes in work activity. With that said, here is my 2026 Personal Vision and Mission Statement:

My personal vision for 2026 is to stay healthy while working to inspire others to thrive. To accomplish this vision, my mission is to live with faith, hope, and love.

Goal #1: Living with Faith

In his Letter to the Hebrews, St. Paul the Apostle wrote, “faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” I have no idea how long God will allow me to do work, but I have faith it will be until He determines my work is done. To that end, I’ll work on a couple of projects in 2026. 

Sandra, our daughters, and I established The Corazón Collective last year. It’s a nonprofit organization that seeks to provide support to Latino cardiac patients and their families. I’ll work on planning, raising funds, and building the organization this year. 

I’m also working on my second book. It’s the story about how a group of Mexican American civic leaders envisioned and built the Mexican Heritage Plaza in east San Jose during the 1990s. Last year, I started doing research for the book. My research included conducting personal interviews with  people who worked on the project, rummaging through online archives, and reviewing personal papers at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library at San Jose State University special collections. The Mexican Heritage Plaza: A Symbol of Resilience and Perseverance is scheduled for publication this spring. 

Goal #2: Living with hope.

St. Paul is also my inspiration for hope. His Letter to the Romans teaches us to “rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” I didn’t expect to have a life-changing heart attack sixteen years ago. But I did. I decided early on to take St. Paul’s advice about hope. So I persevered. Hope is on the agenda again for 2026. 

Taking care of a transplanted heart requires perseverance. Day in and day out. As best as I can, I’ll maintain a low-fat, low-salt diet and try to drink 96 ounces of water every day. My objectives are to walk 10,000 steps five days per week and do resistance training for three days. Exercising my mind and soul is also part of the plan. Books on my reading list, reading the daily gospel and other reflective works, and meditation on a daily basis are good for the spirit. 

Another objective to living with hope and nourishing my soul is getting together with friends more often – old and new – and doing fun things like playing golf, shooting baskets, and catching a few sporting events in person.  

Goal #3: Living with Love

Evangelist Billy Graham described God’s love as “a deliberate decision on our part to put others ahead of ourselves.” My 2026 Personal Vision and Mission Statement includes serving others.

Staying healthy will help me be present and spend quality time with Sandra and our daughters. Good health will also allow me to be the loving father and husband they deserve. I’ll be available to support the girls in every way as they chart their own lives and careers and be a partner with Sandra to maintain our household.

A couple of years ago, I had the amazing privilege to advocate on behalf of transplant patients in Washington, D.C. I will continue to serve the transplant community on the board of directors for Transplant Recipients International Organization (TRIO).

Since the publication of my book, Summer in the Waiting Room: Faith • Hope • Love, I’ve been able to share my story as an inspirational speaker. I plan to share my story of hope at speaking events throughout 2026. My first scheduled speaking engagement for this year is the 29th Annual TRIO Remember and Rejoice Ceremony at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City on March 28.

In addition to nonprofit work and speaking opportunities, I’ll continue to mentor Latino and Latina professionals interested in career advancement and civic leadership. 

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Can I get it all in? I don’t know. But, there will be no New Year’s resolutions for me. My 2026 Personal Vision and Mission Statement will be my roadmap for a meaningful year full of faith, hope, and love. Of course, God will be the final word on my activities for 2026. If He takes me in a different direction, I’ll follow His lead.

Roots at Harmon Park

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My parents (Lico and Marie) met on a late summer day in 1949 when Mom went out to the neighborhood park with a cousin to watch some boys play baseball. Mom caught the eye of Dad as he strutted around the diamond with a smile that could be seen across the field. He was calling at my grandmother’s front door the next morning, respectfully asking permission to talk to my mom.

~ Summer in the Waiting Room: Faith • Hope • Love, page 11

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I remember being a  little boy playing by myself with toy cars on the sandy dirt in the hot desert sun. Every few minutes or so, I stopped to marvel at the jumbo jets that roared just above my head and the roof of the small house on the south side of Phoenix, Arizona. After dark, I would go inside and endure the humidity caused by the old swamp cooler that was supposed to refresh those inside from the suffocating heat. Like clockwork, every few minutes or so, an airliner departing Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport shook the little home as its jet engines boomed above.

Those are the most vivid memories I have of visiting Grandma and Tía Lipa in the early 1970s. My parents grew up in South Phoenix and met there in 1949. I have many first and second cousins in Phoenix. Dad was the youngest in his family and I’m the fifth of six siblings. Due to distance and a huge age gap, I never developed relationships with my Phoenix kin, especially after my parents passed away. More recently, we have been connecting via social media. I hadn’t been there since the late 1970s, until two weeks ago. 

The occasion was my cousin Rojelia’s 80th birthday. The birthday girl’s mom was Dad’s older sister. It was an event many months in the planning. My big sister Barbara organized the Lico and Marie García delegation. As I’ve chronicled on this blog and in my book, the past 14 years have been a roller coaster of emotions for me. Faith, hope, love, and mindfulness have been the bedrocks on my post-transplant journey. Making a pilgrimage to Phoenix, Arizona wasn’t on my radar. Barbara persisted and Sandra insisted. How could I say no?

Sandra and I took an early morning flight out of Mineta San Jose International Airport for the three-day event. Landing at the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport had no special significance. We arrived in time for a big party (Dad’s parents had 42 grandchildren!) at the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post 41 in South Phoenix on Saturday. Relatives from all over the United States danced the night away to a DJ and a live band after dinner. 

I had a blast catching up with California cousins I hadn’t seen in more than a decade. We were sharing and laughing at the same old stories that made us laugh every time we got together. Seeing others with whom I’ve been connecting with on Facebook was nice. It was the first time I’d seen many of them since the last García family reunion in San Jose 42 years ago. The 1982 reunion weekend gave me a sense of grounding to something bigger than my immediate García family. That had slowly dissipated during the past four decades, until two weeks ago.

On Sunday morning, after breakfast at VFW, Post 41, Barbara and Rojelia led a tour of my parents’ South Phoenix neighborhood. As we slowly drove by the house Mom grew up in on West Pima Street, the first thing I noticed was a jet leaving the airport. Suddenly, the tour stirred something in my soul I couldn’t recognize. Two blocks away, kitty corner to Mom’s house, stood the projects Dad called home throughout his youth. We got off the car and entered the complex as another jumbo jet climbed into the sky.

The pre-WWII buildings looked like army barracks facing an inner courtyard. After some debate about which apartment belonged to our grandmother, we settled on apartment #212. Rojelia recounted how she was born in the one-room living quarters in 1944. She remembers being a mocosa (snot nosed kid) watching Mom and Dad taking wedding photos in the courtyard. “It was all so elegant,” Rojelia reminisced. 

Mom had a collage of that day hanging in our small living room when I was a kid. We were standing and taking pictures of our own on the very spot where Mom and Dad celebrated their wedding day 74 years ago . . . I was transfixed! We whipped our cars around the corner and stopped at Harmon Park. My cousin told us that the baseball field at Harmon Park is where my parents met. 

I wrote the passage on page 11 of Summer in the Waiting Room about my parents meeting at a park from memories and family oral history. I may have been to Harmon Park as a young boy, as I vaguely remember walking to a baseball field during the trips we made to visit Grandma and Tía Lipa. But, two weeks ago was definitely the “first time” I’ve been there. There was a baseball game in progress. I could picture Dad “as he strutted around the diamond with a smile that could be seen across the field,” and I could see Mom demurely smiling from the bleachers. 

Barbara woke me up from my trance when she said, “I didn’t know you loved airplanes so much.” She mentioned that I looked up at every airliner that flew by. I mumbled something about how the sound reminded me of our visits from over 50 years ago. It was another way of saying, “I love those jets flying out of that airport. The boy playing with toy cars in the sandy dirt had come full circle to South Phoenix.

When mom passed away in 2003, eight years after Dad, I felt empty inside like a hot air balloon floating through life without an anchor. I focused on my home base in East San Jose and the home Sandra and I were building with our daughters. That foundation created a strong tree trunk of our little family tree. But there weren’t any Mom and Dad roots. Through the years, we visited California’s central valley where Sandra’s parents started their story. I have friends who have ventured back to their roots in Texas, Mexico, and a Native American reservation in Northern California.

I was quietly envious of the stories they brought back. As a man, I didn’t have the experience of “this is where it all started.” Until two weeks ago. Standing in the park where my parents met some 75 years ago was amazing. I looked to my left and saw Mom crossing West Pima Street on her way to a baseball game. I looked to the right and saw Dad running across 3rd Street to meet his teammates on the diamond. Between those glances, I watched each jetliner fly by above. I felt the roots of the Lico and Marie García family beneath my feet.

We finished the tour at St. Anthony’s Church, where my parents were married in 1950. It’s just two blocks north of Harmon Park. It was cool, but a little anticlimactic after the cathartic experience at the baseball field. The next afternoon, Sandra and I were securely buckled in our seats on American Airlines Flight 1667 when the jet engines roared as the plane screamed down the runway. Less than a minute after lift off, we soared above the little house on West Pima Street, the projects on 3rd Street, and Harmon Park, where my roots are firmly in place.

It was a three-day whirlwind of emotions for the ages. Connecting with family members I hadn’t met and reconnecting with others I hadn’t seen in decades was special, especially since we all descended from a matriarch who lived in a public housing one-room unit. I don’t know if or when I’ll return to South Phoenix, Arizona, but I’ll always cherish this trip. Thank you, Barbara for persisting and thank you, Sandra for insisting. I love you both. And, yes. I love those jets flying out of that airport.