My brother Hector died unexpectedly in the summer of 2016.
Almost five years later, one day I woke up with an idea: what if I bought the internet domain with the phrase he used in English for the text he wrote to a friend when he dedicated one of his paintings to her: What If I Say Yes?
I immediately got to work. I went to Google, saw that the domain I wanted was available, and bought it. Then I started to think about what I wanted to achieve with this space. Since my nephew Luis was studying to be a full-stack web developer, I hired him to build the website.
Then, I asked my twin brother, Jorge, and my daughter, Maya, to design the logo.
Years before Héctor died, I had put on my vision board that I wanted to publish a book with my sister and three brothers. But that plan died with Héctor.
I decided then that in this space I would include my sister, my two brothers, my mother, my father, my husband, and my daughter. The book that I wanted to publish became a much more inclusive and complex project and space. Thus, www.whatifisayyes.com was born as a space in which I talked with my family to process, indirectly, our pain due to Héctor's passing. It was also a space to continue honoring his life, which included what he had left of his soul in each and every one of the people he came across in his almost 48 years of walking on Earth.
My adventure started in 2022 and my published website contained four main sections:
The juiciest part was, of course, the BLOG, because I had eight sections that in some ways included my whole family:
The icons we picked were on a free website (www.flaticon.com) and are designed by someone by the name of @freepik
Here's a glimpse of each section:
In December 2020 I started taking pictures during my daily walks outdoors. It was my way of processing my stress after several months of being at home due to the pandemic. Taking photos made me take a closer look at what nature has to offer.
I started to see things in a new way. I took my time to breathe, process and enjoy life looking at and being with nature.
And then one day I thought: what if I start sharing my photos with the people I love? And not only that. How about creating a fun experience for those people? This is how I decided to share my photos by adding a descriptive and creative phrase to them.
In this blog you will be able to see what I have been seeing since then and you will be able to read the phrases that I came up with. I hope to inspire you to start seeing your world through a different lens…one that is more caring, patient, loving, and understanding.
If you do, I can assure you that you will start to feel better about your own lives.
And this is an example of an entry:
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One day, reflecting out loud with my husband and daughter about the meaning of my life, and answering their questions, I concluded that I wanted to try something new that made me very nervous but at the same time made me extremely excited: create my own podcast.
Thanks to the pandemic, I had started listening to a lot of podcasts and had fallen in love with this intimate form of communication.
Now the question was... What do I make my podcast about? What do I have to offer the world? Well, it turns out that for many years I have been gifting words to my family, my friends and dear friends, to people I love and admire. But I have not published these writings, I have not shared them with anyone other than the people to whom they are dedicated.
So I thought "what if I make it about gifts and words?"
This is how the title, the idea and my podcast were born: De regalos y palabras, con Lucía Cárdenas (Of gifts and words, with Lucía Cárdenas).
The logo was designed by my twin brother, Jorge. My older brother, Luis, is the sound director. My sister-in-law, Ana Laura, helped me train my voice. And my daughter, Maya, recorded the podcast intro. My mother tongue is Spanish and that is why I record it in Spanish. I still haven't decided to say what if I say yes to recording it in English? because that still scares me a lot (my pronunciation isn't perfect and I am afraid that I will end up saying something that sounds like something else, ha ha). But in the spirit of this website, one day I'll be announcing that I said yes! and I will present my podcast in English. In the meantime, here I will tell you what I talk about in my different episodes, with the full intention of inspiring you to do the same: learn to give away your own words… And who knows? Maybe you'll also create your own podcast one day.
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My twin brother and I are turning 50 this summer (2021) and to celebrate big it occurred to me that we could create a book together and self-publish it with Amazon.
Without editors or editorial houses involved and without depending on someone to tell us if they liked our project or not.
I consulted with my brother, and he said yes!
Many years ago, Jorge found in painting a way to fall in love again with life after having gone through very painful moments. And since then, he has created works of art that make those who see them fall in love.
And to top it off, a few years ago he created his own website to promote Mexican artists (you have to visit www.pintoresmexicanos.com to see what I'm talking about... It is a beauty!)
Well, the fact is that our idea is to choose the best 50 works of art from him (painting, drawing and sculpture) and combine them with my best 50 photographs.
Jorge is going to design the book and I am going to write the text and together we will publish, in 2022, a work that I hope you like as much as we do.
The idea is to inspire you to do the same: self-publishing is a way to bring our most sincere and deepest thoughts to light and share them with the world without having to face unnecessary barriers from publishing houses.
In short, here I will tell you about our creative process and update you on our progress.
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One of the silver linings of the pandemic was that I found new ways to get closer to my daughter Maya. Being together for several months was quite a challenge... until one day we discovered that we could create things together.
In the summer of 2021, several of her cousins graduated from middle and high school and to celebrate from a distance we made a video with a very important character in Maya's life: Cookies.
It's a little bear that my brother Héctor gave her the day she was born. He arrived at the hospital with a little pink plastic bracelet that said, "she's a girl!" and with a beautiful little bear that Maya later named Cookies (yes, in plural).
The Cookies video was so successful that we decided to continue making and sharing more videos to celebrate someone's birthday or to entertain little friends.
In this space we will share some of the videos that we have created together (Maya, Cookies and me).
I hope it inspires you to create visual projects and share them with the world!
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The most important woman in my life, after my mother, is my sister Rocío.
She is older than me and therefore has had to forge a path so that when I have to walk through life it is less difficult for me.
She takes care of me from a distance, she loves me unconditionally and has taught me to live life in a lighter way.
When I have had difficult moments, it is my sister I talk to.
And just as there is the famous section of the Dear Abby column (Dear Abby - Wikipedia), on this site I want to create a similar section, but with my sister being the one who gives advice and guides readers, as well as me.
This space is meant to be a fun place to listen, learn, and consider a fresh perspective.
Rocío and I hope you enjoy it.
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My mother (her grandchildren call her “Abuelita”) dedicated a big part of her life to raising 3 sons and 2 daughters, and later helping raise her 3 granddaughters and 3 grandsons.
The time she had left for herself was minimal and yet she always found a way to keep being curious and learn.
Now that we are no longer at home and that she can enjoy her time more freely, she has a huge collection of recommendations regarding books, movies, documentaries, places to visit, etc.
In this space I want to share her recommendations with you, as a way of honoring all that institutional memory that she has in her more than 70 trips around the sun.
Hopefully this space encourages you to look back at the people with whom you have shared a lifetime and start conversations about the things you have learned during your lives.
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This is a section that my daughter Maya and my husband Carlos will create.
They wanted to participate in this space, and I said yes! 😄
Here they are going to talk about some moments of the month that were critical, funny, interesting, curious, and so on.
It is a space to encourage you to reflect on how you lived the past month and to choose a moment that you want to remember forever.
Maya and Carlos hope you like what they are going to share with you.
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In this section I want to share with you the stories of people I have met who perfectly exemplify the philosophy of "what if I say yes?".
You will meet people who, at different times in their lives, have dared to say yes! and have started some of the most interesting projects.
They are the people who inspire me to keep going and who remind me that life is worth living.
I hope this space inspires you to express the best of yourself in the different areas of your interest.
Good luck!
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And why change everything now and start on a new platform?
My nephew Luis designed my previous site for me, and it turned out great, but he must get on with his life and I have to be able to do this without his help. So, we made the decision to create a new site now at Wix.com where I will do everything (although I confess that, for the initial stage, I have had to ask for his help again, ha-ha).
Let this entry remain as a memory of the adventure of 2022 and let us now begin the adventure of 2023 and beyond…
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