My Life With My Family

I had lived in Virginia most of my life. I was surrounded with a lot of family, and great

What makes my family so unique is that we have established that although we aren’t all physically together anymore like we were when I first moved to Tulsa, we are closer than ever. I thought that being apart from my family would take me back to life before I ever knew them, but they have become such a prevalent part of my life that our relationships can stand the distance. I find myself looking forward to the weekends when I can go back to Tulsa, even if it means I won’t get any work done. We know that no matter how busy we get; family is always a priority. Moving to Tulsa and growing up around my huge family showed me how much I really value family and the rare sense of belonging that you get when you are around them. I hope that in the future, my family will have the same opportunity to grow up surrounded by their loved ones and that they too will find value in

My family was and is still very important in my life. Sometimes I would become melancholy when I think about how far apart I am from them. On the other hand, I do become enlightened when I think about how both sides of my families are close when I visit them in Missouri. As a child, never really had a birthday party or received a lot of presents, but when my family comes during my birthday, I feel like I’m receiving hundreds of presents. My family makes me feel safe and secure when I’m feeling down.

Throughout my life, I have known no other home than Texas. I was born at a hospital in Dallas to join my parents Tom and Vicki, and my older brother Brayden and eventually my little sister Sara. My brother and sister have always been my best friends growing up despite all our fights and complaining about each other. No matter how many troubles I’ve run into, my brother has never ceased to be there to help me up when I’ve fallen down. Growing up, he taught me to be kind, respectful, caring, and a true friend to everyone I meet. When my sister came along, I was able to act and care for her as my brother did for me when I needed him the most. For the first 10 years of my life I lived in a big house inside of a neighborhood that surrounded a golf course. I always loved Mckinney; everyone I would encounter was always caring and friendly.

I grew up in Forestdale, Alabama no matter how far i go that’ll always be what i call home Birmingham made me who i am i made many mistakes there but I also had plenty accomplishments there to that is where i was brought up at i will always visit there. I will try to come there every chance I get and just hang out with old friends and talk with family like i use too when i was younger. It made me who I am because it was a place i’ve always felt safe and could call home no matter what happens i know that place will always be there for me and I will always have someone who loves me unconditionally and always be there for me I will always get greeted with a hug and a smile. The place i feel loved the most is my great aunt's house in Forestdale

I was fortunate enough to grow up with my extended family, which is pretty large considering my dad has six siblings and my mom is one of eight siblings. Family has become a pretty central part of my life because many of my aunts and uncles on my mom’s side lived on the same street in Philadelphia, PA for years, and so we all grew up together. My cousins and I would spend the day together outdoors and every night we would all meet up for family dinners at my grandparents’ house. After a few years though, my nuclear family and I, consisting of my parents and my older brother, moved to New Jersey. My grandparents instilled in us the importance of spending quality time with one another whenever the opportunity presented itself, and they always reminded us that nothing in life was guaranteed, and that none of us could predict what tomorrow would hold. Because of the increased distance, and as we all got older and our lives got busier, members of my extended and nuclear families had to make more of a conscious effort to set aside a day every now and then so we could all spend time together. For example, every Thanksgiving and Christmas we have a family potluck at alternating houses, and on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July we have barbeques together. It’s easy to make excuses to skip our family events, but none of us ever miss them because these interactions we have with

When I was born my father, mother, and I lived in Post Falls, Idaho, but before I was old enough to make memories while living here, my parents divorced and I moved to an apartment in Spokane with my mother. Shortly after my parents’ divorce my mother was diagnosed with cancer. To eradicate the cancer, my mother had to have surgery and go through months of chemotherapy and radiation therapy. The medical bills were outrageous which motivated my mother and me to move in with my grandparents in Davenport, Washington.

The Thanksgiving of my seventh grade year is the most memorable to me as it was in those five days my cousin Michael and I grew closer than we ever had before. My cousins and I would race our Grandfather’s golf cart against his neighbor’s cart in the streets past dark so that we could not be seen by my Grandfather. The shared adrenaline rush we would get speeding by the river bonded us and created a mutual understanding between us, that sometimes kids need to release energy and let loose. Our mutual escape from the lull of a proper Friday night dinner let us see the real sides of one another. Due to my last time seeing Michael was fifth grade, things had changed in the both of us, and those fifteen minutes of rebellion let us show each other who we had become. Sometimes I look back on this moment when I miss my family, as it was a time where all the cousins joined together regardless of our ages. I have not seen Michael since then, as it is hard for my aunt and uncle to get time off to visit from Florida. I sometimes wonder what Michael is like now, and look forward to our next fifteen minutes of rebellion at a friday night dinner. Missing Michael has taught me the value of family, and how one person can change your whole

My grandparents started taking care of me just as I was born, and when I was 7 my parents left Cameroon to come to the United States in hopes of a brighter future for their children. I enjoyed living with my grandparents because I was surrounded by cousins, and was blessed with an abundance of mouthwatering traditional food, handmade by my grandmother. I had become accustomed and enjoyed the lifestyle I had while with my grandparents. However that was subject to change when I received the news that I would be joining my actual parents in the United States.

As a young girl, my extended family was the sun, the moon, and the stars in my eyes. Unfortunately, that was all changed when my grandma died in December of 2011. That’s when I experienced jealousy for the very first time. It all started with my aunt Ceil, a freezer, and my unsuspecting father. Ceil has never

When we lived in Chicago, we settled in with my dad’s side of the family. His older sister, Ana was married to my uncle Rigoberto or “Beto” for short. They had 4 kids, Ana Elisa, Liliana, Araceli and the youngest, Rigoberto Jr.. We would always get together and have cookouts every other weekend. My cousins, along with my brother and I, would play games and share jokes. As time went by my family had decided to move to Texas in 2004, we were leaving my aunt and her family. It was a sudden transition for both my brother and I. New school, new people, and a new environment. We missed living in Chicago, including my parents. Since we had moved in south of Austin there was nothing but open fields and agricultural roads, it took us about a year to get used to our new home. Over time we had gotten more acquainted with a few of our neighbors here. My dad was trying to convince my aunt Ana to move down here with us because of the peaceful and quiet environment; especially since it was closer to travel to Mexico. Finally, after three years of detailed things about our new place through phone calls between my family and aunt, they decided to move to here with us. At first I was happy that they

Grandparents are very important people in one’s life because of the many whimsical things that they do for us. My grandparents are always there to make me feel better. My amazing grandparents make me feel better with their warm, welcoming lives, and love when I'm down. To me, they are the nicest people on the entire surface of this planet. Since supply me with what I need, and even more, I am able to do fun things with or without them. Also, they are very caring towards me and the rest of my family. Additionally, they give me gifts, and good ones too, school, and occasionally help me do life. Besides, they essentially supply me with everything I need for the real world, but my parents do that as well. One of my favorite qualities of my grandparents is that they give us amazing trips around the world. Doing these trips with them is one of the most fun things you can possibly do. They give us the trips to

From the outside, my life consists of all happy moments. My friends, family and teachers all see me as a bubbly, positive girl that is full of curiosity and energy. There is this one secret that only I know. Holidays scare me. Starting at the age of fourteen, I began to realize that I have a fear of holidays. As holidays start to approach, I become nervous and anxious. I love Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Years, but my fear consists of my parents. As an only child and having all my extended family members living in Malaysia, I spend holidays celebrating with my parents. Holidays for me can either turn out to be good or bad. When I was little, my parents would have a big fight or argument at least once a year and it typically happened during the holidays. These fights always ended with my parents not talking to each other for days. My parents would talk to me about their problems and as an only child, I did not know how to deal with it. When these fights happened, I use to think it was my fault. I would cry while they would argue and continue to cry when I took a shower. The thought of my parents being mad at each other, made me sad and frustrated because there was nothing I can do. As I grew older, I realized that these fights were not my fault. I should not put the blame on myself. I learned to understand that married couples sometimes fight and adults have so much daily pressure they carry on their backs that little situations can become big

The visits to their house became different. It was no longer about catching up and visiting; it became about cherishing every last moment we had with her while she remembered us. It then turned into visiting them for a little bit and making sure we did not overwhelm them. I could only imagine how they felt every time all the grandkids, their children, and their children’s spouses came to visit them. It must have been a lot to take in each time when they only get visits once a year from around twenty people. The trips would last about a week and we would try to do different activities every day. It got to the point where we would only see our grandparents twice a day. We would tell them hi in the morning and then see them again at our big family dinner. The summer of 2016, my sister, father, and I wanted to get to Colorado before everyone else. We wanted more relaxed time with our grandparents before twenty more people came and overwhelmed their home. We would still have a sit down family dinner with them and cherish every second we had with them. I thought the dinner would be okay and nothing to it since it was only three more people added to the table for my grandparents. I was completely wrong. I helped my grandparents down the stairs to their floor of the house after dinner. I sat them down and put the TV on. I sat down on a chair across from my grandmother and she had a confused look on her face,

Our family was blessed to be a part of an even larger family. Our father had a brother and three sisters; his brother’s wife and daughter died in childbirth before any of us was born. Because of this, he played a more prominent role in our lives than he would have had he had his own family. His three sisters had sixteen children between them. With the nine in our family, there were twenty-five cousins who were often together celebrating Christmas, birthdays, Baptisms and other family special occasions with our grandparents.