My Father And My Family

Sitting in jail after getting myself in trouble with a few friends doing things we should not have done. Balling my eyes out thinking of all the things that are going to ripple from this one mistake, I start to think of how this would affect my life and family. Overall, not really knowing what to do.

I was born and grew up in Ethiopia, moving to America three years ago. Ethiopia is one of the traditional country where most of the population and the economy rely on agriculture. I was born in small rural town called Akaki in the southern part of Addis Ababa City. My family depends on agriculture, my parents grow crops like teff, barley, hard wheat and sorghum, which is the common ingredients for our day to day meal. The production of these crops takes place in traditional farming. I am the youngest kid in my family, that means I am free from any responsibilities in my culture my older siblings do most of the things in our family. I spent most of the time playing with my friends. Everyone in my family loves me. If something happens with in our family, the oldest one are accountable and responsible, even I am a young and grown guy, this thing makes me lazy and spoiled person.

“Work hard, never give up, and most importantly, always stay humble and kind”, these are just a few words my father would say to me when he had the chance or felt that I needed to hear that. My mother would say, “Mickey, as long as you believe in yourself, you can do anything”. To this day, I live my life through proverbs, quotes, and advice from a variety of people. I am very family-oriented. Most of the things I do is in hopes that I can augment some type of valuable contribution to my family and others. To begin to tell my story, I will first start by talking about the people who had the biggest influence on my life.

“Hello, do you want to be my friend?” Wow, what a childish thing to say. Nevertheless, it was from my mouth in which these words came out of. I remember constantly saying this exact line to almost everyone I know, and the response I got was always something similar to a smile and “of course”, what happens after this is playing for hours on end and departing when our parents dragged us home. That was how I lived my childhood, making new friends wherever I go and ending everyone with separation due to our parents. During those times, I would be so annoyed with my mom, dragging me home every time we started to have fun. I now realize it was because we were a mess, covered in dirt and due to the fun we were having we didn’t even realize it was raining. But when I had realized this care that my parents had for me it was too late, my parents had divorced and I was left with my dad.

Family is one of the most important parts of life. When you have a piece of that missing, you always wonder what could be different. When I was little i always looked up to my uncles and my best friend was my papa. I wanted to do everything with them but because of my uncle’s job in the armed forces we didn’t see him as much as we liked but that made our time together even better. I would go everywhere with my papa and when my cousins were in North Carolina I wanted to do everything with them. I didn’t know that our family tree was just a little more complicated than I thought. It was something that would affect me forever.

The most important thing for me in my life is my family. Although we are separated during the week, we would hardly see each other. Deep down they are the reason why I look forward to Fridays and Sundays. These days are not just any ordinary day of the week for me and my family. My two beloved aunts Maria and Luz come to visit me and my mother, most of the time we go out of town, which makes the rest of the day go by very fast. Then what we usually do during the week.

Family provides a basis for how we interact with the world; when meeting someone new, or doing a new action, I think back on what my family has taught me. I have a large family and each member has done something that has impacted me in some way, but I have really analyzed how my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and parents have impacted my life. There are several aspects to consider however for this analysis I will be focusing on these socioeconomic events: immigration, poverty, gender, educational attainment, death, and health problems.

One of the most difficult things to do is to break all my ethical values and principles down into a single phrase or statement. However, I have no choice in the matter. So, I would have to say that my family’s drive to want to do good for those who are less fortunate and the strong sense of family that we all demonstrate must be the strongest and best values of all. If we stay along that thought process, I would say that, for me, if I leave a strong and ethically sound roadmap or legacy for my kids and their kids to follow, then I would say that life was a success. Having said all of that, here is my single statement: The purpose of life is to achieve a socioeconomic status to where I can ensure the safety and overall wellbeing of both my family and then their families while achieving a positive impact on society that is greater than when I entered it. Always try to better myself and my family!

Family. That word means everything to me. My parents, both immigrants from India, were raised in relative poverty in their hometown of Bengaluru. They courageously made the decision to leave their own family behind for the sake of a better opportunity for themselves and their children. They sacrificed a lot when I was growing up, as they worked hard to establish their careers. Thankfully, my grandparents were there to help take care of me. Travelling back and forth from India, they would help around the house, cook meals, and even pick me up from school. Their presence played a huge role in my childhood. I was lucky enough to basically grow up with four parents, each of whom instilled in me values that I hold today: hard work, sacrifice, and altruism.

When I was 16 years old, I realized I was similar to my dad. I always felt different from my family. My parents and my sister's look-alike. Their skin colors are all the same. I’ve always been the darker and chubbier one in the family. Sometimes I used to think I wasn’t even related to them. I even asked my mom as a kid, “did you guys kidnap me from someone as a kid?”

My family growing up was very connected with the community. My dad was on the police man for the town of Sleepy Hollow and served as a board member for the town of West Dundee. My brothers and I learned how to care for and about others from the example our dad set. My grandfather died when I was quite young so I cannot say if he was an example for my dad, his brother and two sisters. For this paper, I will discuss my father and his family in parallel with myself and my brothers. I and my father, are the youngest. My father had three siblings and I have two. The relationship between my father and his two older siblings was very strong. My father’s relationship with the sister just a couple of years older than him has been strained since the death of my grandmother in 1983. I have a strained relationship with my eldest brother. The relationship I have with my brother who is just two years older is better, but still strained. I grew up in a strict catholic family that went to catholic school and attended whichever church my father was a deacon at. This is important because back in the 1970’s and 1980’s families did not talk about things that happened. My family was not any different. Everything, bad was swept under the table never to be spoken of.

From as far back I can remember, my dad was never a great father to me in my eyes. Not to be mistaken for taking him for granted, because I am very thankful to have both of my parents. however, in the aspect of father-son bonding, my dad was never fully there for me. We would constantly argue and but-heads over anything and everything. Also, I didn’t have the experience of going out and simply hanging out with my dad, or even just doing normal things that dad’s and sons do together. My dad was

Both my parents were born in Burundi. My dad is from in a place call Mucibitoke, and my Mom is from Bujumbura. My parents got together when they were young. But however, they didn’t get married till two years ago. My mom started living with my dad when she was 15 years old, and they are ten years apart. After getting together in mid 70, the genocide breaks up in Burundi. That’s when they fled the country and went in Rwanda where they live for more than ten years. Then, they started having children. My parents had total of 10 children but 2 first born passed away. Both my parents are Christians, and both my uncles and cousins as far as I know. Growing up, I understood what it meant to be a fallow of Christ; I grew up depending on God in all. My mom has been influenced me in a lots positive way. In everything she ever done, she did them to the glory of God. Example, when my mom is about to consume food, she prays, thank God and ask for blessings every time. When she is done, she does the same thing. Whether is getting in a vehicle or getting out, God must be first. Sleeping or woken up, God must come first.

Prior to the semester starting, my family and I flew to my county of origin Colombia. My grandfather was undergoing an emergency surgery. My mother and I feared that something unfortunate would happen to him. My stay in Colombia was only 7 days I came back the ## then school had started the next day. Despite the fact that my grandpa came out surgery in good health, I was still distracted because I returned to America alone, while my mother and step father stayed for an additional 2 weeks to care for my grandfather post op. On the day that I was supposed to pick up my parents at the airport I received a call from my mother telling me that spirit will not let Ricco my step-father fly due to his resident card was expired. My mother went to the American council to see how this could be fixed, they responded telling her Ricco my stepfather will no longer be a resident of America or be allowed back to the United States due to traveling with an expired residency. My mother calls me hysterical, crying saying ricco is not allowed back and what we were going to do?

There were many lessons I have learned in my past such as to shoot gun and bow properly and that family is important. I have had some time to reflects on my lessons learned but the one that stand out the most is that family is important. For everyone they have had someone they have lost that they were somewhat close to them. Plus I think that people underestimate how much they are attached to a person until that person is dead or have passed away. Family is one of the most valuable things people have in there world.