Advice from Glamour’s Inaugural ‘Your Mom of the Year’
Limón, a family law attorney in Alaska, is also an accomplished endurance athlete, an advocate, and a mentor—certainly a woman with drive. Like every mom I know, she’s capital-B Busy. But it’s clear from speaking with her and her daughter, that she seems to have found a way to harness that busyness, toeing the line between burning out and bringing her best self to her work as both a professional and as a mother.
This was impossible for Walker and her sister, Lucero, 24, to miss. Every morning, they could count on the sight of Limón—already having meditated and been for a run—in the kitchen making steel-cut oats for the family before heading to work.
“Growing up with a mom who just seems to be able to do [everything] all the time, there’ll be moments when I’m really busy and I’m like, okay, I need to channel Lynda right now,” Walker says. “I don’t know how she does it.”
In addition to her job as a mom, Limón has a full caseload—which often feels like a personal crusade on behalf of her clients. “I do divorces, so [my clients] are navigating a very difficult time fighting over money and kids. It’s so much more than a case to me. It’s people’s lives and more importantly, people’s children,” Limón tells Glamour. She’s spent 30 years focusing her attention and energy on helping families in her community make it to the other side of these challenges. “I know I can help people with the work that I do so that they can continue to raise really healthy, successful children.”
Limón is also an active mentor in the legal community. “I feel strongly that I should pay it forward and be a role model for women and people of color,” says Limón, who participates in Color of Justice, an immersive program for high schoolers interested in law hosted by the Alaska Native Justice Center.
Limón has somehow also found the time to build an impressive resume as an endurance athlete, logging thousands of miles over dozens of races and fighting to support girls and women in sports. In 2007, she competed in The Gold Nugget, the largest women-only sprint triathlon in the country, which is dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls through sport, and was immediately hooked. (The exact number of races she’s competed in eludes Limón but she can recall: over a dozen sprint triathlons, seven Olympic distance triathlons, several half Ironmans, three full Ironmans—plus, half marathons, full marathons, and a 50-mile run in celebration of her 50th birthday in 2016.)
