The Hands That Raised Me

“No one becomes the person they are because of one person alone. Looking back over my life, I realize I was shaped by many hands. Some gave me life. Some gave me love. Some gave me discipline. Some gave me courage. Every one of them helped build the foundation I still stand on today.”

As I began writing these letters of appreciation, I thought this chapter would be the easiest.

After all, everyone has parents.

Then I sat down to write.

The truth is, I don’t have one simple story about “Mom and Dad.”

I have a story about four people who entered my life at different times, each leaving behind something I still carry today.

This isn’t a story about perfection.

It’s a story about gratitude.

Where My Story Began

My biological parents could not have come from more different worlds.

My mother, Cathie Rene Eisen, was a seventeen-year-old free spirit from New York who chased adventure west. She often described herself as a gypsy. She loved horses so much that she would ride one to school. She loved books, writing, gardening, and art. She was passionate, caring, honest, stubborn at times, and never afraid to live life on her own terms.

My biological father, Esteban Ramirez, came from Colima, Mexico. His journey to America was very different. He came as a young man searching for opportunity and eventually found his way to the racetrack, where he worked with and trained racehorses.

Whatever else life would eventually reveal about both of them, they shared a willingness to work and a love for horses. And somewhere in that world, their paths crossed; without horses, there would be no me.

By the time my mother was six months pregnant, she was still ponying horses at Sunland Park. She and my father had begun building a small racing stable of their own, and for a while, things were actually going well.

I apparently became part of the racetrack before I ever officially arrived.

As my mother’s belly grew and she continued working horses, the people around the track started calling me

“Post Time.”

Everyone was waiting for me to make my entrance.

My mother worked through contractions on May 31 and eventually went to the hospital that evening. She told the nurse she needed to have me before midnight.

The nurse basically told her that wasn’t happening.

At 2:55 the next morning, I proved the nurse right.

I had arrived.

My First Days

My mother didn’t stay away from the racetrack for long.

Shortly after, I was going to work with her.

She would breastfeed me on the way and place my car seat safely at the end of the shed row while she worked the horses. Apparently I would sleep through much of the morning while life at the racetrack carried on around me.

One morning, a horse came back from the track just as I woke up hungry and crying. My mother’s milk arrived, but the horse had to be unsaddled first, so I had to wait.

One of the jockeys, Salustio Burgos, saw that I was crying and what was happening and told my mother not to worry,

“him crying builds character.”

Apparently my character started developing pretty early.

My mother recently told me that when she wanted me to sleep, she would bounce me on her lap to imitate the rhythm of riding a horse.

It worked almost immediately.

There’s also a photograph of her holding me while sitting horseback.

I love that picture even more now.

Before I could walk, horses were already part of my story.

When Life Changed

Unfortunately, the life my parents were building together had another side.

My biological father was hardworking and could be caring, but alcohol and jealousy increasingly changed him. Their relationship became abusive, and my mother found herself trying to raise a child while living in an environment she increasingly feared.

There are details I’ve only learned as an adult.

Some are difficult to hear.

But they’ve helped me understand my mother differently.

For a long time, I knew that she eventually left.

What I didn’t fully understand was how difficult leaving actually was.

She had little money, two young children, few places to turn, and a man who had threatened what would happen if she tried.

So she planned.

She slowly lightened what she owned.

She sold horses.

She arranged somewhere else to stay.

And she waited for an opportunity.

One memory has stayed with both of us.

I was around two years old when I walked up to my mother after she had been hurt, touched her busted lip, and said:

“Dadda hurt you.”

I obviously didn’t understand the weight of those words.

She did.

Eventually, she found the courage and opportunity to leave.

As a child, I only understood that my world was changing.

As a husband and father today, I understand much more.

Under the Stars

During those difficult years, my mother told me there were nights when she would step outside, lie in the grass, and stare at the stars.

She wasn’t running away.

She was trying to find a few minutes of peace.

One night, she had been outside long enough that I noticed she was gone.

So I went looking for her.

I don’t remember doing it.

She does.

She later wrote about that night—about lying beneath the stars trying to replenish herself, only to have a little boy come outside, cling to her shoulder, lean against her arm, and interrupt her need for solitude with his need for his mother.

Reading her words nearly four decades later affected me more than I expected.

She needed the stars.

I needed her.

And somehow, both things could be true.

Another Mother

Leaving my father didn’t mean my mother wanted him removed from our lives.

My brother and I continued spending time with him, and during that period another woman became part of my story.

Marya.

I don’t remember every detail of those years.

I remember what mattered.

Her cooking.

Speaking Spanish.

Her teaching me how to tie my shoes.

Being kept clean and cared for.

Warmth.

Comfort.

Belonging.

She treated me the same as her own children.

Those things probably seemed ordinary at the time.

I understand them differently today.

Recently, I reached out to Marya after far too much time had passed. I explained what I was doing with Before the Final Salute and thanked her for the way she cared for me.

I hoped she might help me remember some of those years.

Her response gave me something better.

She told me she was proud of me.

She told me that feeding me and keeping me clean wasn’t something she considered extraordinary. It was simply her responsibility as a mother.

She told me her humble home would always be open to me.

And throughout her message, she kept calling me one thing: Son.

That stayed with me.

I had reached out to thank a woman I remembered helping raise me.

She reminded me that, in her heart, she had simply been raising her son.

Marya, thank you.

There is something powerful about loving a child who isn’t biologically yours so completely that the child never feels the difference.

Home Again

For a period of time, Spanish was the language surrounding me most.

It became my first language.

My mother eventually became concerned about my schooling and whether I would learn enough English to succeed. When she saw that I was falling behind other children my age academically, she made another difficult decision and brought me back to live with her.

That decision changed the direction of my life again.

Because by then, another man had entered hers.

His name was Ronnie Hammett.

The Mountain Man

My mother’s description of meeting Ronnie makes me smile because it sounds exactly like the two people I remember.

She met him in a bar.

He was sitting there in a black cowboy hat.

They started talking, and Ronnie began telling her about log cabins, mountains, ranches, and the kind of life she had dreamed about.

Apparently another man came into the bar that night carrying flowers for my mother.

Poor guy. She barely noticed.

She had already found the mountain man.

Ronnie eventually invited her to the ranch, cooked home-grown steaks over juniper wood, and sat with her on a swing hanging between two giant juniper trees.

Their lives began growing together quickly.

And eventually, so did ours.

My mother recently described Ronnie as the love of her life.

She said he gave her almost everything she had dreamed about…and, in her words, “a hell of a lot more than I bargained for.”

That sounds like Ronnie.

The Man I Called Dad

I was still a young boy when Ronnie became the man I knew as Dad.

He was hardworking, funny, loud, strict, resourceful, and more grit than polish.

Definitely a mountain man.

Life with him meant being outside.

Hunting.

Shooting.

Cutting wood.

Working around animals.

Fixing things.

Exploring the mountains.

Getting dirty.

Getting in trouble.

Learning.

Our life wasn’t fancy, but as a boy, I didn’t need fancy.

I had mountains.

Animals.

Siblings.

Adventure.

And adults who expected me to figure things out.

There’s much more to tell about that home and those years, but I’m going to save that story for another chapter.

What matters here is something I didn’t understand until much later:

Ronnie wasn’t just teaching me how to hunt, shoot, work, or survive outdoors.

He was teaching me how to face hard things.

And they followed me somewhere Ronnie probably never imagined when he was teaching that little boy in the mountains of New Mexico.

His lessons stayed with me long after childhood ended.

Long after I left home.

Long after I earned the title Marine.

They’re still with me today.

The Hands That Raised Me

Looking back now, I don’t see one traditional family.

I see four people who entered my life through very different circumstances.

My mother gave me life and showed me what courage can look like when there are no easy choices.

My biological father gave me my heritage and a work ethic that I recognize in myself to this day.

Marya showed me that motherhood/parenting doesn’t require shared blood.

And Ronnie taught me resilience, responsibility, and how to keep moving when life gets difficult.

None of them gave me everything.

But each gave me something.

And together, those somethings became a large part of who I am.

A Letter of Appreciation

Mom,

Thank you for fighting for us.

As a child, I couldn’t understand many of the decisions you made. As I’ve gotten older—and especially after becoming a parent myself—I understand more.

Thank you for surviving the difficult years, for finding the courage to start over, and for continuing to search for a better life even when you weren’t always sure what “better” looked like.

And thank you for sharing these memories with me now.

Dad,

Our story is complicated, and I don’t want to pretend otherwise.

But complicated doesn’t mean there is nothing to be grateful for.

Thank you for giving me life.

Thank you for my Mexican heritage.

And thank you for the work ethic that became part of me.

There are lessons I learned from your strengths and others I learned from your mistakes.

Both mattered.

Marya,

Thank you for treating me like your son before I was old enough to understand how meaningful that was.

Thank you for the meals.

The Spanish.

The clean clothes.

The tied shoes.

The hugs.

And the feeling that I belonged.

Most of all, thank you for reminding me all these years later that, to you, I never stopped being your son.

Ronnie,

Thank you for stepping into a little boy’s life and becoming Dad for me.

Thank you for the lessons.

The discipline.

The adventures.

The hard days.

And the things you taught me that I didn’t appreciate until much later.

You prepared me for challenges neither of us knew were coming.

There is much more I need to thank you for.

I’ll get there.

To all four of you:

Thank you for the pieces of yourselves that became pieces of me.

I wouldn’t be standing where I am today without the hands that helped raise me.

With love and gratitude,

Esteban

⸻

What I Know Now

When we’re children, our parents seem like finished products.

Mom is Mom.

Dad is Dad.

We don’t think about who they were before us.

We don’t understand their fears, relationships, mistakes, dreams, or the things they were carrying while simultaneously trying to raise us.

Writing this chapter has changed that for me.

I’m beginning to meet the people behind the titles.

And strangely enough, understanding their imperfections hasn’t made me appreciate them less.

It’s made me more grateful.

Because I can finally see that while they were figuring out their own lives, they were also helping me build mine.

For that…

Thank you.