About Me

My name is Lucía Cárdenas.

I am a daughter, sister, niece, wife, mom, aunt, goddaughter, friend, comadre, partner, guide, supporter, coach, virtual cheerleader, Zoom session organizer, archivist at heart, writer, podcaster, and much more.

I have a bachelor's degree in Education (pedagogy) from The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), a master's degree in Anthropology from The New School for Social Research, and a Certificate in Translation (English into Spanish) from the University of Texas, Brownsville (now the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley).

But most importantly, I am the intellectual creator of this website, honoring the philosophy that defined my dear brother Héctor Cárdenas' life. A philosophy that speaks of possibilities, growth, love of life, and the use of the word yes in constructive and creative ways.

I welcome you to this website, a sanctuary of possibilities guided by yes!

Let me tell you why I created this space...

Héctor was the one who taught me to take risks and throw myself into doing things that scared me, but that I also wanted to do.

Thanks to him, I decided to leave Mexico and pursue a graduate degree in the U.S. My life trajectory took a radical turn, which has led me to where I am today.

Whenever I shared my new ideas with him, he always encouraged me to do whatever I could to make my dreams come true.

When he died unexpectedly in the summer of 2016, his absence left us all, especially me, with a bottomless hole in our souls.

But over the years, in addition to missing him greatly, I have learned to incorporate things I learned from him into my life every day. That is my way of not letting him go, of not forgetting him, of making his absence hurt less.

So, one day, five years after his passing, I woke up with an idea: What if I bought the domain with the phrase 'What If I Say Yes?' that he used in English for a text he had written, dedicating one of his paintings to a friend.

I immediately got down to work. I checked Google and saw that the domain I wanted was available, so I bought it. Then I started to think about what I wanted to achieve with this new online space.

Since my nephew, Luis, was studying to become a full-stack web developer, I hired him to assist me in building the first version of this website (read the story in the Blog section).

Then, my daughter Maya designed the logo of What If I Say Yes? and my twin brother, Jorge, gave it color and form.

This is a space where I can continue to honor my brother's life. 

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Below is the text he wrote on November 5, 2005 (these are the words that inspired me, years later, to create this website in his honor):