Marine Vet Receives Wish of a Lifetime, Records Song in Nashville Studio

Throughout his career, Espinoza maintained a platform of using his art to give back to his Chicano and military communities.

In 1970, he conducted a study in hopes of improving the federal food stamp program and advocated for funds to train artists to expand awareness of Mexican culture and history. Later, in honor of the Marines, he painted and dedicated a mural in downtown Denver to the those who served and died during war.

Wish of a Lifetime from AARP

A dream realized

Although he recorded songs in Spanish and worked with a record label in Colorado, Espinoza’s dream was to record a country music record in Nashville. That’s when he reached out to Wish of a Lifetime from AARP.

“I have never recorded in English. The doors for Chicano artists in country music were closed. I never had an opportunity to do it, or the means,” he says.

Decades earlier, in 1980, Espinoza wrote a song about the pain of loving someone who suffers from cancer, in hopes of advancing cancer research. The song came to him after he stopped in a restaurant on his way to work and noticed a woman reach over to squeeze her partner’s hand.

“She was in obvious pain. And I thought, well, he must be in physical pain because of the way she reacted, and that gave me the idea for the song,” Espinoza says.

Cancer is something that Espinoza is far too familiar with. In addition to being a cancer survivor, he lost two adult children and his grandmother to the disease.

To make his wish a reality, Wish of a Lifetime flew Espinoza to Nashville, where he recorded his song in English and Spanish. He also toured Nashville’s Broadway and had his picture taken on stage at the Grand Ole Opry.

“I don’t know how many people stopped me on the street to thank me for my service,” he says. “I told them, ‘It’s a dirty job and someone has to do it.’ There’s a lot of grateful people out there.”