FALFURRIAS, Texas — This week's edition of Table Talk takes us to Brooks County and a staple in Falfurrias, Strickland's Restaurant.
While there, we met a woman who is celebrating her mother and her very special milestone that’s quickly approaching.
This story turns personal as Lucy Flint Trevino, a local woman who grew up in Falfurrias, moved on after graduating and then came back home as so many people do.
The one constant in her life? Her mother.
"She'll wake up in the morning when she has breakfast and sing songs from years ago,” Trevino says about her mother. It’s a ritual of sorts.
And at the age of 110, Maria Trevino’s voice is still going strong.
"She still has spunk in her,” Trevino said. “She still has the will to live.”
Her daughter tells us her mother attributes her long life to her family and her faith.
"My mother has been known as Mother Theresa because she's always been very, very helpful to everyone in town all of her life,” Flint said as a big smile came over her face. “She's always been there for everybody.”
Maria Trevino came to Falfurrias with her parents from Mexico when she was 13 and never left. A mother of eight and married for 50 years and very involved with her church.
"As I said, she is right next to Mother Theresa,” said Flint. “I say it's God, the Virgin Mary, and my mother.”
Flint remembers growing up on the family ranch, later graduating and then moving on to bigger cities and then outside of Texas. She may have been far away from her mother but the phone would always keep them connected.
We asked Flint if she and her mother had always been close, especially with so many brothers and sisters.
“Always. Always,” Flint said.
When we followed up by asking what she attributed that to, she answered, “I don't know. I felt that I could always confide in her. You know. Whatever my problems were. I always went to her.”
Her emotions about her mother caused her to choke up as she remembered all she means to her.
"Just all the, what I've been through in my life. Well I've been through in my life," Flint said.
Then Flint finally returned to Falfurrias when her mom was 99.
"She was still taking communion to homebound (parishioners) at 99,” Flint told us about her mother who would drive the priests to deliver Communion.
"Driving her 1988 stick-shift four-speed Festiva. They used to call it the piñata because when she would back out of the garage, she looked this way and then she would hit the car this way,” Flint said with a big laugh.
These days, Flint says her mother has gotten weaker, has trouble standing, and needs help getting in and out of bed.
"And it's just hard to see her like that because she was always so strong,” Flint tells us. “A very strong woman. She was always there for us and for everybody and now to see her deteriorating.”
And now, she'll see her turn 111 on March 13.
We asked Flint how her mother will live until the age of 111?
“Chilitepin,” Flint said. “She has eaten chili all her life since she was a little girl.”
You could consider it a mix of chilitepin, faith, and love.
We asked Flint if she thought she was lucky.
“I’m very lucky,” she said.
Fortunate and blessed, we asked her?
"All of the above to have a mother like her," she said.
And now, Flint has a message to others when it comes to appreciating your parents.
"Stay close to your parents until the end,” Flint urges. “Don't leave them alone in a nursing home or leave them at home with no life.
"Be with them. Visit them often. Spend time.”
And with this latest story, we have just one more county in the 12 Coastal Bend counties we serve and that’s Jim Hogg County.
So where should we go? Where is the food good but the talk around the table even better?
You can interact with me on any of my social media pages or at paul.mueller@kristv.com.
In the meantime, I hope to see you will see you on the road. Have a great morning, everybody.
