“So many times I should have died — bullets, knives, cancer — but God didn’t give up on me.”
Liz’s story is bigger than one lifetime can hold. Some scars you can see. Many lie hidden, beneath the tears that still spill down her face when she talks about all she’s endured. And yet, between the scars and the tears, lies a gentleness— a warmth in her resilient spirit, guided by an enduring faith in a loving God.
She came to this country at just nine years old, landing in New York without a word of English. By nearly eleven, she was in Los Angeles, growing up in Lennox, learning fast how to survive in a hard world. Childhood was never carefree. By fourteen, Liz was already paying all the bills for her family. She was sent out as a “mule,” and describes herself simply as “a paycheck for them.”
Even so, she was brilliant and determined. By eighteen, Liz had become the third youngest certified architect in California. She started her own construction company — remarkable by any measure. But life’s weight never let up. At sixteen, she had already started fighting cancer, the first of multiple battles. Around the same time, addiction took hold.
Love came to Liz in unexpected ways. She’s a gay woman. Herman was a gay man. They’d been best friends since they were thirteen, bound by a deep trust. They decided to get married and build a family together. They had twins, Luz and Marco, and set up life in Lennox, with their mothers living on either side. Liz says it was a season where she finally became everything her mother hoped for — and felt the love she’d always longed for. But just one and a half months after their twins were born, tragedy struck. A 14-car pileup on the 405 freeway took Herman’s life and that of their baby girl Luz.
Liz was lost. “Life went from a castle to a grave,” she says. She drifted through her days, physically present but hollow. Her mother stepped in to raise Marco, while Liz became what she painfully calls “a part-time parent,” dropping off gifts and sending money, but too broken to be fully there.
Two years later, still drifting and staying wherever she could, Liz’s life took another turn that upended her world in ways she never anticipated. She discovered she was pregnant — already more than seven months along — from an encounter that happened against her will. Stunned and certain there had to be some mistake, Liz struggled to process how her life could shift so abruptly once again. Over time, she came to see her son Mateo, unexpected and born of pain, as one of her life’s greatest gifts. Determined not to let him pay for her past, she quit drugs that very day and has now been sober for 34 years.
Through Options for Recovery, she didn’t just learn sobriety — she learned how to truly be a parent. It’s also where she met Doreen, a woman she jokingly told on their very first day, “You’re going to be my wife.” Two years later, they were married, raising Marco and Mateo together.
But life still wasn’t finished testing her. Liz’s cancer returned, declared terminal. Her wife, terrified of being left alone to raise the boys, left in the middle of that second battle. Liz survived. Later, she started cleaning houses, which led her to Delores — “Dolly” — who became like family. Liz cared for Dolly 24 hours a day for twenty years. When Dolly developed MS and longed to see the ocean again, Liz bought plywood and laid it piece by piece across the sand so Dolly could wheel herself right into the tide.
When Dolly died in 2020, her family took over the house, and Liz was left without a home again. She moved onto the streets.
A year later, Madeline, a case manager from St. Margaret’s Center found her. By 2022, Liz had saved enough to buy her own trailer. But through cancer, poverty, and heartbreak, Madeline never stopped showing up. “It was her persistence that saved my life,” Liz says. “She is my best friend, my angel.”
For three years, Madeline and St. Margaret’s Center gave Liz showers, medical support for her cancer treatments, food, and above all — friendship. Madeline guided her through case management and never stopped believing alongside her. Then one day, Madeline introduced Liz to an apartment she’d found. Liz loved it at first sight, but tried to not get her hopes up. It seemed too perfect. Two weeks later, Madeline was handing her the keys. “I broke down crying,” Liz says. “It was the perfect place.”
Now Liz lives in a peaceful apartment overlooking Kenneth Hahn Park, furnished with a bed, lamp, and desk thanks to St. Margaret’s and its supporters. She’s still fighting acute leukemia, but her days aren’t only about survival anymore. She dreams of writing a book about her life — about grit, humor, scars, and above all, agape. “Whenever I interact with people, I try to lead with agape,” she says — unconditional love, the same kind she believes saved her. One day, she hopes to work alongside Madeline, doing outreach, helping unhoused parents and their kids, offering them the same steady hand she once reached for.
Liz wears many scars, inside and out. She still cries when telling her story, all the losses and triumphs wound tightly together. Every visit to St. Margaret’s starts the same way: with a big hug from Anna at the front desk, reminding her she’s welcome and safe. Liz knows how misunderstood people on the streets can be. “Everyone thinks it’s just drugs,” she says. “But there’s so much depression, so many people who’ve lost hope, who have nowhere to go and no one to believe in them. Places like St. Margaret’s are essential — there just aren’t enough of them. They give people hope. A better future to believe in and work toward.”
Through it all, Liz says she’s come to know a God who is forgiving and who’s never stopped watching over her. “So many times I should have died — bullets, knives, cancer — but God didn’t give up on me.”
