Carolyn Fuentes Fitz-Gibbon

NptBchLady.com

Carolyn Fuentes Fitz-Gibbon
7/2/1934 - 2/4/2026
~Edited by Michelle Steele~

As some of you may have heard, I lost my mom Wednesday night. It wasn’t unexpected, but it sure was sudden. She was a truly amazing mom whom all those who knew her could attest. At 91, she had been fighting blood cancer for about a year. She never complained. Every single time we went to her Dr appts, she would find something nice to compliment someone on when we went on the elevator. Their shoes, a purse, a piece of jewelry, their perfume – Something. She always lifted up everyone around her – especially me.

Whenever she met someone with an accent, she would ask where they were from and then speak to them in their native tongue, and more than likely tell them about the last time she was in their country like Syria, Tunisia, Yugoslavia, or Israel, what she thought about their latest dictator or how sad she was about the recent war in their country. She was very geopolitically astute, and she at least knew how to greet someone from all over the globe.

She lived an amazing life and came a long long way as did her older sister starting from the very working class North Side of Chicago, where my grandfather Lupe who was an Immigrant factory worker from Mexico who somehow raised a family in IL and was eventually able to comfortably retire with an American pension to Ramos Arizpe MX where he was treated like the mayor and where he taught me how to play dominos but forgot to teach me to never ever EVER drink the water in his house, and my grandmother was from Bern Switzerland where she brought an amazing work ethic and self-reliance and somewhere along the way she learned how to bake amazing cookies and make quality long lasting rugs. An odd couple indeed.

My mother grew up in Chicago but spent a lot of time in Mexico, specifically Saltillo, Coahuila, Monterey, and Mexico City with her sister and made lifelong friends and memories she never forgot or stopped talking about. She never let me forget my heritage and instilled a great pride and appreciation of my Mexican roots in me.

She graduated from Lakeview High where she learned to play the flute and was the captain of her cheerleading team. My mom was born and lived in the Lakeview neighborhood on Sheffield Ave. directly across from Wrigley Field in what is now or at least at one time, long after my mom lived there known as “The Sheffield Rooftops”. Long before those rooftops were monetized, my grandma gave birth to my mom at home in a room where she could watch the Cubs play from her bedroom window, an unobstructed view of the entire field. She could look at old photos from homeplate and pick out her bedroom. Chat GPT says it was just a noisy quirk of the neighborhood like the EL and not really considered a benefit. I mean, I think it sucked even back then to be a Cubs fan – sorry mom – being a lifelong Cubs fan, I know how happy you were when they finally won. Go Cubs

Somehow my mom got herself from the north side of Chi Town on a boat ride at the old upscale Northenaire Resort in Three lakes WI., where I learned to snow ski at the ski resort that was part of it and where I learned how to do a dock start on waterskis on Deer Lake, the same body of water my parents met on and Ian learned that Pike are mean fish that can eat you, or at least your finger The Northanaire was owned by my fathers grandfather Carl Marty, a cheesemaker, thinker, poet, naturalist and painter from Switzerland who founded the world famous Swiss Colony mail order house and basically brought real Swiss Cheese to The Americas. He’s my dads grandpa, as much as I am my dads son.

Apparently, my mom saw my dad at the end of The Northanaire main dock, holding his thumb out, hitchhiking with a pair of waterskis. The dude driving the boat was dumb enough to turn around and come back to give my dad a tow, doing this new sport my dad had mastered – I guess that’s all it took. That and the fact my dad's family owned the place. I don’t think my mom ever had a chance, the dude driving the boat sure as hell didn’t. Big mistake dude, but……THANK YOU!!

They were married and headed to CA in no time. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows though cause somewhere along the line when I was in the 3rd grade they got divorced and my mom was forced to put her head down, and get a job as one of the first female saleswomen ever selling Visa accts to small businesses for Imperial Bank on Wilshire Blvd. and raise two sons on her own -- she made it look easy. She never remarried, selflessly dedicating herself to my bro and I, like good moms do – And she was such a good mom!

She probably would have remarried, but at one point, I think I was such an asshole and troublemaker I drove a couple of perfectly good Jewish Dr’s, first a radiologist and then an endodontist, back to the dating pool.

In 1975 She moved us from a 2-bedroom shithole apt in Brentwood in West LA to a 5-bedroom townhouse in Orange County. Just in time, as my grades were beginning to drop and some of my new hoodrat friends were talking about boosting cars – none of them were even close to having driver's licenses! I had also recently discovered skateboarding, and not long after that my friend Arthur introduced me to a pretty motley crew of skaters, and I started to ditch school and go look for empty pools to hang out at and watch the older kids skate while we piddled around in the shallow end. I remember Skateboarder magazine came out right when I moved to Newport with some of my friends in it. Like my friend the OG Z-Boy from Dogtown Arthur Lake, whose dad was Dagwood from Dagwood and Blondie fame. He was the catcher on my little league team and one of my best friends, who was a great guy but a horrible influence. He taught me how to roll my first joint – with tobacco.

My mom was paying attention, because besides skateboarding riding my StingRay on fireroads at Will Rogers State Park, and building plywood jumps at construction sites was my first passion, especially after seeing On Any Sunday and discovering motorcycle magazines I could read for free at the drugstore. There was a name for it; - “Motocross” was my true passion, but not nearly as accessible as skateboarding.

My mom knew something was up when I started drifting apart from the friends I had that were a good influence, like Kenny S, once he got accepted to Harvard-Westlake private middle school. Mom saw the writing on the wall and planned to get us out of the Big City. ASAP When I found out, I mentioned running away and staying with my friends in LA….maybe in a van down by the river – I don’t know.

A week or two later she shows me a letter from Vic Wilson, the owner of Saddleback Motorcycle Park saying: Why yes, if your son comes out to the park we will keep an eye on him while he rides his little MR50 around that me and my bro had gotten a year or 2 earlier but could only ride at my dads when I visited. I had never even heard of Saddleback Park, yet somehow my mom found out about it wrote the owner, and got a response back. That’s the kind of mom she was.

God, I wish I kept that letter. She even said she’d buy me a bigger motorcycle – I never said she didn’t spoil me, little did she know I’d find a cheap one within a few weeks of arriving. I think she liked how I framed it as just a bunch of parts in a box and would probably keep me busy the summer or longer to get running. HA! Mark Hayward got his little brother Greg's XR75 running and taught me how to keep it running in a few nights. And just like that, a lifelong passion was born - all thanks to my mom's support.

My mom lived an amazing life. She traveled the globe kibbitzing with a world champion bridge player for some years. She skied the Alps, she swam with sharks, and she fought bulls in TJ with her older sister. She even jumped out of a perfectly good airplane at 75!

One thing she never did, though, was ask me when I was going to stop racing motorcycles - out of pure love. (My dad would mention it almost every time I saw him - out of pure love) Even though my bro and I have put her through Emergency Room and Rehab Hell. Starting at Santa Monica General, where she said when she’d call to say her son needed stiches they’d just ask which one this time, Paul or Ian? Then, the time I broke my neck racing at Anaheim Stadium, she was snowed in skiing in Austria, all she knew was that I broke my neck, and she had to wait for the weather to fly home. I’m sure she was extremely relieved after that when I took a 19 year hiatus from racing only to have my bro rise to the professional ranks and rack up way more injuries than I ever had.

Then, when I turned 40 and decided it was a good time to start racing again, she didn’t flinch. Every time I tell her I’m going riding, she would say Oh Good! Genuinely happy for me cause she knows how much I love it, yet entirely aware of how dangerous it is, and when I would get home, she would always ask how was riding? Did you race or just ride? What place did you get? Did you see Bill? Did you say hi to Steve? Did you crash? Are you sure it looks like you're limping?

I saw or read something recently about not knowing the last time you’ll ever do something. I called my mom a couple of weeks ago as I drove home from the track, telling her I was OK. I had no idea it would be the last time I did that. And I clearly remember the last daily omelette I made for her.

If anyone is getting close to going through this, consider writing something while your loved one is still around. I wish I could show her this. I bet she’d like it.

I’m going to really miss her. Adiós, madre, te quiero