A Mother’s LOVE
“Mom, I’m 20. Thank you for giving me life. For everything you have done to get me to this point in my life. You are my rock. I could not give you enough thanks even if it meant my life. I love you Mom with my whole life. Always thank you for making me the man that I am today. These last years have been really the hardest, but we got this mom. We’re going to get through this. I love you.”
Michelle Arbizo re-reads those words every so often, when she’s feeling the loss of her son, Dominic Romero, the most.
He sent her that text just a few hours before his death, the last thing he ever told her. Dominic died on his 20th birthday—Jan. 4, 2019—in a hit-and-run while walking on the side of a desolate desert road outside Marana, Arizona. Authorities still haven’t identified the driver.
Dominic’s loss—coupled with the loss of Michelle’s fiancé, Arizona roping producer Rudy Clark Sr. just a year and eight months prior—could have broken the Arizona mother of five. But instead, Michelle picked up a rope, stepped on her son’s horse, and pulled her hat down tight.
Dominic “CheChe” Romero was the fifth of Michelle’s five boys, her baby from the start.
“Dominic was very shy and very quiet,” remembered Michelle, 51, who works
