Brisny Rodriguez Flores
Professor Comuniello
Moreau FYE
March 4, 2022
Wandering Feet: The Love for Travel and How it Builds To A Life Well Lived

	Brisny Rodriguez Flores was born in Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico, on the first day of Spring. And from the first day, one can see that she was going to be something great.

She was a person who was often said to have suffered from wandering feet and wandering eyes. So much so that within the first year that she was born, one would have been able to see her hanging around in the United States, having moved to the country in less than 6 months after having been born. From there she traveled to many places in the US. She has visited Disney World by the time she was 5 (and went on to visit more than 10 times). She has gone to Hollywood Beach to see some of the whitest sands she has ever seen and on her way there she ended up feeding a giraffe in Miami Zoo. She has visited Savannah Georgia, the most haunted area of Georgia (her home state), and has even been to one of the islands that are close to its coast. She has gone to see a President be inaugurated in Washington DC in Virginia and had the opportunity to walk through a retired gold mine. And that was just when she was young. 

Her curiosity and her drive to experience and try everything at least once, had continued to motivate her to continue her travels and her exploration of the world that she has lived in.  . Visiting far off places with a camera, a cat, and her computer by her side. 
Her camera so that she could take pictures of everything she has seen. Her cat for company and for protection form the demons and ghosts that she came across. Her computer so that she could do her work as she worked as a programmer and animator for most of her life, having studied Computer Science and Chinese at the University of Notre Dame. 

Through all her travels, both young and old, she would continue to write her stories and she would continue to come back to Georgia to visit her family. As one thing that was most important to her was her family. I even remember how she told me once, so long ago,her favorite thing to eat was El Pozol and the Caldo de Rez that her mom made. I asked her why, if she’s tried so many delicacies through her travels, and her only reason was because it reminded her of how she grew up. 

She started to mainly focus on her creative pursuits later in life, when it finally became too dangerous for her to move around as much as she used to. She would continue to animate small projects, but she started to expand focusing on storytelling, with her last story ‘The Children in the Cargo Train’, having been finished just before she was taken from us.   

She was a good person. Sure she struggled in certain areas, but she kept going to achieve all that she had wanted to do. It was a sad day when we found out that the ovarian cancer that we previously thought was defeated, ended up relapsing. And it was an even sadder day when it finally took her from us. 

May her family recover and her memory live on.


Writing one’s Eulogy makes a person think about what they value in life. Do they value their family, money, children, traveling or do they value a combination of different criteria? Friendships and experiences, what is that motivates them to keep going and to meet the world head on? In the movie ‘Hesburgh’ (“Hesburgh '' produced by Jerry Barca and Christine O’Malley - Moreau FYE Week Two), Father Hesburgh states that he ‘ wanted students to face the country's issues instead of running away. I wanted them to speak their minds while allowing those that disagreed with them to do the same. I wanted the students to protest in respect even in the face of hatred.’ It seems throughout the film that one of Father Hesburgh's motivators in life were his students, and as a result that caused him to help them in one of most profound ways he could, and that was by helping them find their true selves. That is to say that he cared and wanted his students to find their own motivations and wants in their own life, and thereby causing them to live a life well-lived. A life similar to his own, not in events or in experiences, but in feelings. One that they won’t regret or grow to resent. 

Of course that still brings in the questions of what makes a life worth living? And this is where the Eulogy becomes difficult, as for what exactly is it that I value? What is it that I want to do with my life? What is it that I value today and therefore what I hope to continue to have in the future? In ‘5 minutes’ (“5 Minutes” by Aria Swarr, Grotta - Moreau FYE Week Six) JD Kim states that
“... I was always so focused on what I cannot do… But then I began to realize that some of the things that I can do, the movements that I have already, can be a blessing for some others…So as I began just thanking God and be more positive about the things that I had already, I was able to do things more gladly, and with gratitude and joy and hope.”Through what he said, I was able to realize one of my main struggles, and that was that I always focused on the negative. I degraded myself, and berated myself in a way my own Mom wouldn’t do. And in doing so, I never valued what and who I have with me now. In fact it wasn’t until I read ‘Meet the Nun Who Wants You To Remember that You Will Die’ ("Meet the nun who wants you to remember that you will die" by Ruth Graham, NY Times - Moreau FYE Week Three) that I realized that the way I viewed things and my own situation ends up inherently devaluing the people and items I have and that I love. Not only did it disvalue these people, but it also ended up creating barriers between everyone that I talked to. 

This way of thinking ended up unconsciously creating a ‘theme v. I’ mentality that placed these people under a jurisdiction, similar to the one’s that is described in chapter 8 of ‘Tattoos on the Heart’ (“Chapter 8: Jurisdiction' ' from Tattoos on the Heart by Fr. Greg Boyle - Moreau FYE Week Seven). I placed people in these jurisdictions that I have made, some made from my own outlook and others made from how I was raised (that is to say from my own community's fears and views). As a result I couldn’t or I struggled to connect to people, to the point where one of my friends even noticed. With my friend subtly pointing it out in the discernment activity, by saying that she wanted me to remember that my’ friends are here to help and that I just need to reach out’ (Activity:Complete”Week Five Discernment Conversation Activity” - Moreau FYE Week Five). 

As a result of her comment, I decided that I wanted my future to be one of connection.

So I started to reflect. But not in the way that is described by Lyer in “Why we need to slow down our lives' ' (' 'Why we need to slow down our lives' ' by Pico iyer, TED - Moreau FYE Week One). Instead of disconnecting in the way described, I just started to write. I wrote without thinking, and I find when I do that I often end up realizing what I care about or what I truly want to write about. And in doing  so I fully realized that I  want to travel and I want to make my future one about connections. I want to travel the world in a way my Parents have been unable to do and I wanted to be able to connect to be people in a profound way, similar to how it is mentioned in my Eulogy through my mention of Travel and Storytelling,  as it is my personal opinion that to be great at both, one needs to be able to connect with people. 

And I’m going to try my best to connect with people and to travel, while still doing what I love. And that is that I like to code. In ‘Navigating Your Career Journey’ they state ​​“What do you  find yourself losing yourself in ?” ( “Navigating Your Career Journey” by Meruelo Family Center for Career Development - Moreau FYE Week Four), and I find that I lose myself when I code or when I am writing stories. So I wish to be able to do all of this in my future. Either simultaneously or at different times in my life, as conveyed in my Eulogy.