My Father And My Mother

In the movie Which Way Home, cameras follow several children and adolescence on their journey from Mexico to the United States in hopes of a better life. This is done by hitchhiking on several freight trains illegally crossing the border. Of the thousands that attempt the feet of crossing the border in this manor are roughly five percent according to this documentary. For these children and adolescences, there is an additional risk for this type of travel, due to their cognitive abilities being underdeveloped. Therefore, these individuals may not make the best choices in this form of travel. Moreover, with border patrol apprehending one hundred thousand children during a year, this is no easy task. Within this documentary, you

My mother was diagnosed with a tumor in her abdomen. This took a tremendous toll on me over the course of the next year. I was regularly traveling from Dallas to San Antonio to be by her side and take her to appointments. Being an only child and my father working in Italy, I was her main support system. Family is everything to me. My mother is my everything. This sudden shift of my focus was reflected in my poor grades. I matured quickly during this time and learned to be successful with a rigorous academic course load. Most importantly, I learned to never give up when all hope seems

After my period of grieving, I decided that I had to advance my attempts to do well in school and find the path in life I wanted to take. I began to take high school more serious and stopped having a mindset of “this is easy” like I had in middle school. I pushed myself to go above and beyond, but even so I had an extremely hard time adjusting to high school. Facing many adversities, I reminded myself that life goes on and does not stop for anyone. I went out of my comfort zone and overcame my obstacles, so that all the sadness, fear, anger, and guilt would go away. During my high school years I had much more responsibility, since my family knew that they could rely on me more. Whenever my parents are not home, I have to babysit my brothers, if my parents can not take my siblings to a swim practice, violin class, or can’t pick up my brothers from school, I willingly take them even if it means cancelling my own plans or practices. My grandfather always had time for his family and made sure to put them first. He loved us no matter what and knew the importance of having a family. Because of him, my appreciation for family has grown and taking on this responsibility that my parents have given me the opportunity to grow into a more flexible, understanding, and independent

A very painful and enduring time in my life was when I was fifteen years old and my father told me that I would never succeed in school or college. Ever since then, I have always felt that I could never be smart enough for college and that I would probably just fail all of my courses that I had planned to study. If it was not for my mom, who highly supports me with going to college, I probably would not be attending college this year. I think having other positive family members has really helped me to overcome my fears of failing my classes in college and that I am smart enough to succeed in college and my life.

Since I was a child, my mother would tell me to try my hardest in school. She told me thought thing because as a child, she never had the opportunity to go to school. She only completed up to 4th grade, because her family couldn’t pay the tuition to attend. She would had to wake up at 4oclock in the morning to sell food, to make a living for her family. We were fortunate enough to be able to come to the United States in 2005, but tragedy happens a year later. She received a phone call, saying that my father was in a serious car accident, on the night of Christmas Eve, he passed away. Since then my mother, became a single mother having to support two children by herself in a new country. There

My mother became depressed, my father became disabled, and my brother was skipping school. I continued going to school from eight until four, which was a big relief in my life because it made me forget the hard times. My grades slowly began to decline, as well as my motivation. I gave up many opportunities such as attending New York’s number one specialized high school. I recognized my mistakes and was able to identify my failure. School was not the only place where I lacked interest in because I also slowly started to push my friends away. As a young teenager, I did not think I would ever make it to college. I became frustrated at my parents because my life was ruined and it was all their fault.

During my sophomore year, I became depressed and antisocial due to problems in my life. My mother has been sick with a brain tumor since 2009 and she was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2012. It has been very hard on me and especially for my mother. I worry about her because she has shown signs of severe depression, she often talks about that she would rather be dead than alive anymore. After all of the pain, all of the humiliation of not being able to walk well, the embarrassment of not being able to write well, all of the staring and comments I would hear about my mother, she is still strong. After 6 years of pain and suffering along the way, I do not blame her. Everything seems to get worse. She now needs surgery due to avascular necrosis that was caused by many years of chemotherapy. I began to lose motivation slowly because I did not have any friends in any of my classes and I felt like I was stuck in a

Growing up, I've had many experiences that have made me who I am today, from how I was raised, to activities in church and school, and my dedication to academics. All of them, however, have been and continue to be influenced by my mother. She is a single parent and has had double the responsibility of most two-parent families, but she has always shown me that everything can be done if you put your mind to it. My mom worked a full time as well as a part-time job so both my sister and I could attend a local private school, Oakhill Day School, from age 2 through 15.

As I headed back to school after the August recess, I was in a somber mood. It was my final year in high school and with the certificate of secondary school examinations closing in, I was still uncertain about it. Earlier on, my mother bid me farewell with words of encouragement for the forthcoming exams. She was bed ridden at that time and in my absence there was no one else who would take care of her but my three younger siblings. I contemplated quitting school and staying home for her sake but she adamantly insisted that I go back. She reassured me that all would be well. Unfortunately three weeks later, she passed on, just two months to the start of my examinations. Although inauspicious, these circumstances were pivotal in defining my

When I was in elementary school, my mother never let me quit anything I started. This shape me into a doer, if I started something, I will finished it.

If I was not worrying about my mother, I was worrying about how I would pick up my brothers and sister from daycare/school and still be able to make it to work on time. I began to forget my role as a student and struggled to stay active in extracurricular activities. I did not feel like a nineteen year old, instead I felt forced to grow up and handle responsibilities I never even imagined I would have to handle. Despite my best efforts to do well in my courses, I finished the semester with C’s in my remaining classes. This to me was considered

When you have an absent father, and a mother who is too busy trying to find where the next meal will come from, there seems to be no purpose for excelling in school. This was my mentality all the way into high school. Even so,during my freshmen year my concentration shifted solely to taking care of my mother. I will never forget sitting in the podiatrist office and receiving the news that both of her feet were collapsing. It was as if the entire world stopped and all colors had faded. To know, that I would have to carry the burden my mother held on her shoulders for so long, made me sick to my stomach. However, I had no time to grieve. With my father completely out of the picture, I had to take hold of the reigns.While this is no excuse, this is why my freshman year grades are far from

There isn’t a day in my life that I wake up and do not ask myself, “Why?” Why did my mother have to leave? Why did this happen to me? Without a doubt, the absence of my mother is the hardest obstacle I have had to overcome. My parents were young and unsure how to raise a child on their own. My mom really believed she could not do it, so she left when I was eight months old. At that age, a mother to an infant is everything, yet she was not there. I grew up not knowing the love of a mother, but learned to be independent. I did not have someone to guide me through childhood because my dad was too busy working in order to provide for us, and his family had kids of their own to worry about. Though his family loved us, they favored their own children over me and my sister. We had to do everything around the house while they did nothing. We felt as if we had no voice and no one to support us. Being in this situation made me into

My mom helps me with everything. School, pays for my cell phone and car because I go to school. She sets up my doctors’ appointments. She tells me what I do and don’t need. She helps me define myself as a women so I can have kids one day, be a great mother like she is, raise a family, have a nice home, get a job. She helps me with all of these things along with two others, my older brother and my younger sister. My older brother had a full ride to go play football at a college and instead of taking the ACT he went and partied it up the night before and lost his chance of playing. He just had a baby and was living with my parents not too long ago and he’s 22. My mom does her very best everyday to help us all out. She doesn’t have to worry very hard with my sister. She’s a sophomore in college and has never made a B in her life. She’s already getting letters from big schools to go there. My mom is very proud of her as I am too. I’ve put my mom through so much along with my brother. For example, it’s my third semester in college and I’m at my third school. I just wasn’t built with my sister’s brains. I’m here, in college, for my mom. She always says, “Please go do big things. Don’t quit like your father and I did when it came to

My mom didn’t have a very good high school experience. Her mom always moved, which caused her to move. Which caused her to have few friends. She never participated in sports or arts. She mostly focused on her home life and school. Her mom never really supported her. When asked about the future, she state “I never thought about the future, it was more of a day by day, moment by moment kind of thing. How am I going to pay for this and when will I get my homework done?” My mom had to buy her own clothes, pay the rent at her mom’s house, and juggle school work. So, as you can imagine, she had a lot on her plate. Although, she did have support from her aunt and uncle. But, she still had to do a lot of things on her own. “Aunt Terri and I would go to her parent’s house and hang out on the farm. We would do every day normal stuff like baking and knitting.” Essentially, Aunt Terri was the mom she never had, she taught her basic skills and gave her tips on different things. “They were the ones that came to my volleyball games and made cupcakes for the