Meet Margot, a clever, funny, Telemundo ad-sales woman who gets a meeting with a hard-to-reach car dealer owner by telling his gatekeeper she’s a stripper he met in Vegas. In the process of selling the ads, she discovers this car dealer executive is the love of her life – even if that’s precisely not supposed to happen. Despite the perils this love brings forth, she pours her heart into loving this man.
Margot’s Peruvian-American parents meet Mike in the hospital, like a scene from the romantic comedy The Big Sick. Before this awkward hospital meeting, Margot had taken care of her little sister, orchestrated her parents buying a house, and helped them adapt to a culture that still felt alien to them. Then, at twenty-nine years old, cancer threatened to take her life.
Perhaps it was her matriarchal spirit that led to wisdom beyond her years and unrelenting courage. From reading the book, it sounds like she had an old soul that understood love better than most. She consistently translated love into poetic words and actions that moved nearly everyone she knew in magical ways.
Margot’s loving husband Mike shares her words, wisdom, and courage in the memoir Living In Color: A Love Story, in Sickness and in Health. A book as compelling as it is romantic, Living In Color takes readers on a journey into the real lives of an incredibly courageous, graceful woman and her family as they face some of life’s biggest challenges. Their journey has the potential to inspire the best in all of us. Fun and light-hearted stories and photographs weave throughout the book with meaningful passages creating a story for the ages.
As the couple loved each other and battled cancer together, readers gain wisdom that cost Mike and Margot so much pain. Margot may have been through more pain than most, but she knew how to accept challenges and move forward. Margot shared her wisdom with Mike as they grew together in sickness and in health. When she got cancer, she told Mike, “cancer can only win if we let it get us down.” And about love, she wrote this poem, “My Love, If you and I are not together in the summer nights, look up. See the stars? A blanket of stars; an ocean of stars. That is my love for you. That is the ultimate life force that you gave me: living in color.”
Blueink Reviews calls Living In Color “a primer on accepting life, whatever it brings.” Mariel Hemmingway, a beautiful-soul author, Oscar-nominated actress, and granddaughter of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Ernest Hemingway says about the book, “Mike’s abiding, almost reverent, love for his wife shines through every page, even as he unflinchingly details what it’s like to go through the treatments, the sleepless nights, the victories, and the setbacks. He skillfully weaves those difficult memories with beautiful remembrances of their time together, letting us see Margot’s courage and resilience along with her gentle, hope-filled wisdom… You will be inspired and forever changed when you read their story. I highly recommend it.” You can watch Mariel’s video review here.
What comes from this beautiful life and love? You may be guessing what the end of Margot’s life looked like, but by reading the book, you’ll come to understand the legacy Mike and Margot are leaving far beyond their own lives.
