‘I would never change him.’ Despite his disability, this son helps mom fight her cancer
When the social worker asked Andre Amador what he wanted for Christmas a few weeks ago, he immediately thought of his mother, a cancer patient who limps heavily because the disease immobilized her left leg.
“A wheelchair,” Amador, who was born with a mental impairment, told his caseworker, “for my mom.”
Amador, 30, started working for Goodwill at its South Florida headquarters in Allapattah about nine years ago, after he graduated from school.
“I was excited, but I was so nervous my first day. I started to cry. I called my mom. My mom said, ‘It’s going to be OK,’” Amador said.
She picked him up early that first day, and with the passing of more days, his confidence grew. “I like it,” he says now about his job. “I feel comfortable with it.”
He can’t really read or write, and he can’t drive at all, but he shows up every day for his 8 a.m.-to-noon shift — bright and early, and clean and scented — thanks to a transportation service the nonprofit provides.
He’s one of dozens of people with disabilities trained and employed by Goodwill at the Miami-Dade center to manufacture military uniforms.
Amador, the son of a U.S. veteran, is in charge of lacing an olive ribbon on the pants’ hems and making knots at each end of the ribbon, a tiny step in the elaborate process of creating the attire, but one that brings great purpose to his life.
He contributes his earnings to the family’s strained finances. “I’m the only one who works in the house,” he said. “It’s hard, but I keep on going.”
He has made lots of friends at Goodwill. He likes talking to others while they work about what they watched on TV or what they had for breakfast. He’s drawn to action and comedy films, he said. His favorite show is “Walker, Texas Ranger,” and his favorite food, even in the morning is lasagna.
He’s especially close to three friends who work there and who are blind. He escorts them around the production plant after they arrive and before they leave. As he makes his way past the work spaces, other peers often yell at him — “Andrecito, hi!” — and compliment him — “Looking sharp, Andre!” He grins and shoots his hand up in the air, waving in response.
“People love him here. Everybody knows him,” said Catherine Miranda, who has been a social worker at Goodwill for about three years. “He thrives here.”
Miranda said when she met Amador he was a little shy at first, but he soon warmed up, and she got to know him as a positive force. She said he has never lashed out at anybody, not even raised his voice to anyone, or showed bitterness in any way at work, despite his challenging situation at home.
“He’s extremely selfless,” Miranda said. “I think his life is his mom. He loves his mom.”
Amador’s mom, María Rosario, said she broke down crying when she initially heard Amador had thought of her and her wheelchair. She currently uses a walker her sister got her at a flea market for about $20 about a decade ago.
“My heart broke,” Rosario, 55, said. “He’s my angel.”
‘You’re a fighter’
Rosario’s breast cancer was first diagnosed 16 years ago. At the time, she set two goals for herself: fight the disease and help Amador, her eldest son, become more independent, in case she lost her fight.
The cancer was in remission for a while, but then it came back aggressively and spread to her bones. She’s lost count of how many surgeries and different medical treatments she’s had. She’s currently getting chemotherapy.
Over time, she’s also started doubting she’ll ever feel better, so she has prepared Amador for what she sees as her inevitable departure.
“We have had conversations about how the Scripture says that for everything there is a beginning and there is an end. I tell him that if I do not heal, that he shouldn’t get angry at God ... and that one day we are going to see each other ... and that he should try to be a happy man,” said Rosario, as she weeps with one hand on top of her heart and another latched onto her son’s hand.
“I’m ready. When she passes, I’ll be OK with it,” Amador said. “I’m sad. It’s not easy, but I have to do it.”
Amador lives with his mom in a gray, single-family house in Brownsville. His younger brother, who is 28, lives with them, but doesn’t work because he suffers from a crippling depression. Rosario said her younger son hasn’t left the house in years because of his mental illness. While she has encouraged him to seek medical care on different occasions, she said, it never really pans out.
When Andre gets home every afternoon, he strolls past the colorful plants, like lavender Egyptian star clusters and crotons that he cares for during the weekends, while his mom, whenever possible, rests on a lawn chair and watches.
After opening the front door, he checks in with his brother and mother. He repeatedly asks his mom: “Do you need anything? Does it hurt? Did you sleep?”
He doesn’t know how to cook, but he heats her food in the microwave and plates it. He brings her drinks and charges her phone. He fixes her blanket and pillows, and helps her get out of bed to go to the bathroom.
“OK, I’ll help you,” he tells her. “You’re a fighter.”
Rosario taught Amador how to garden. That’s his main hobby. She also taught him survival skills: how to clean his room, wash his clothes and even use his phone for basic tasks like ordering an Uber ride. He uses a special mobile app that suggests words to type in.
But perhaps the most important lessons have been on how to accept himself the way he is and how to stand up for himself if anyone tries to put him down because of the way he is. She has told him he needs to call out those who humiliate or insult him.
“I’m making him strong so when mom isn’t around anymore he will be able get ahead and he won’t need anyone,” Rosario said.
Amador was born in Texas. At the time Rosario lived there because her ex-husband, Amador’s father, was based there as a member of the military. As a baby, Amador cried and fussed relentlessly. No matter how much she rocked or lifted him, Amador resisted.
A friend of the couple suggested to Rosario she take the infant to the doctor to get him checked out. Rosario said she mentioned it to her husband who dismissed it, and that was the end of it.
A few years later, when she split up with her husband and moved to Miami to be closer to her sister, she remembered and took him to the doctor. That’s how she found out he had a mental impairment. She raised him repeating that everyone is different and everyone has a weakness, and he’s not an exception, but that doesn’t mean he will give up at life and play victim.
“You always need to try,” she tells him. “If you can’t do it, then you look for help, but you need to try yourself first.”
Because of Amador, despite her throbbing leg and weakened state, Rosario feels lucky. Whenever her limited energy allows and he doesn’t playfully push her away, she reaches out and smooches him.
“I would never change him for anything in the world,” Rosario said. “I love him the way he was born. He is my gift, and I am very proud of him.”
How to help
To help this nominee and 150 other nominees who are in need this year:
▪ To donate, use the coupon found in the newspaper or pay securely online through www.MiamiHerald.com/wishbook
▪ For more information, call 305-376-2906 or emailWishbook@MiamiHerald.com
▪ The most requested items are often laptops and tablets for school, furniture, and accessible vans
▪ Read all Wish Book stories on www.MiamiHerald.com/wishbook
