My Mom Is The Only Child

Every night as I put Teagan to bed, after we’ve brushed her teeth, read her my “goodnight moon” we’ve sang our ABCs and you are my sunshine, we pray. Tonight she wanted to say the prayer. She prayed that “Dipstick and Momma and Beaner (herself) and DD (Daley) Uncle bubby (Arden) and Berky (Berkeley) and Casey and Cassidy all had sweet dreams. She then told God, “God, please tell grammy and poppy to have sweet dreams and i hope they are dancing on the clouds in Heaven.” Then she climbs under the covers and snuggles up to dipstick in my bed. I tell her “Mommy will be in bed in just a little bit. I love you.” And I kiss her on the forehead and tuck her in. My parents died in a driveby shooting when i was 20. T was only 3. They were a part of the

When I was 14 and my brother was 11 years old my mom got an opportunity to teach in United states of America and she had to leave us for a while I was surprised by hearing the news I was sad and unhappy. Before leaving to America, she promised us that she would return to India. We were so exhilarated as we were going to see and fly to a new country, and I was also euphoric that nobody is there to stop me from doing anything because my dad was really fun loving, caring, and friendly person and my mom was totally opposite she is strict, disciplined person we were very much grateful to our dad he took care of us with lot of patience

When I was around five or six years old, my family was stationed in El Paso, Texas after my dad came back from overseas. The church that my family attended every Sunday was the Church of God and Christ. The Church of God and Christ is where southerners say all of the “holy-rollers” attended or the overzealous Christians attended. My parents were not really holy-rollers themselves, but we attended this church because my dad wanted my family to attend to gain a sense of God and know about Christianity because he always attended church as a child while he was growing up in Mississippi and that helped him as he developed. He wanted my mother, sister, and I to be exposed to Christianity as well, especially my mom since she did not really attend church during her childhood.

My grandma Linda was her only daughter. I spent weeks at Ma’s house in Holstein, Iowa. Christmas for the Grell’s was always hosted at Ma’s house. When I was young she would take me swimming at the communities pool, and ice cream afterwards. Ma’ was an expert cook, her favorite summer dish was fried chicken. She was nearly famous for that fried chicken. In September of 2012 Doctors discovered a tumor in Ma’s liver. Ma’s children paid for an assisted living home in Sioux City, Iowa. She pasted away March 21, 2013. Leading up to March the relationship between my mother and her parents decrepitated. My grandparents refused to come to my high school graduation.

The last way I want to describe my family is as Christian. All of my family members are practicing Christians. My father’s side of the family has traditionally been Baptist, while my mother’s side of the family has deep roots in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Through doing this assignment, I found out that my maternal grandfather was an AME pastor. Church has always been a pillar of my family. As children, we had no choice but to attend church because it is what our parents felt was best for us.

Moving to the United states was a very hard transition for my family not only economically but also on our believes. It was hard to find a church where we felt comfortable and for a while we didn’t go to church at all. Moreover, after a few years we settled down and my mom had become very interested in Christianity. There was a beautiful Christian church with wonderful people where we used to go for a

I was raised mostly by mom after my father wasn’t in place once I was 10. I learned, both my paternal great-grandparents are deceased bon in the years 1909 and 1911. I do however remember a slight glimpse my father’s mother (my grandmother). She would always have homemade chocolate chip cookies for me every time I come visit. She passed away when I was 12. My father dad (my grandfather), I don’t remember much about him. I only remember that he enjoyed fishing, but never would invite me on his trips because he would say “It’s too dangerous out on the water kiddo”. Unfortunately, he too was diagnosed with cancer and passed when I was

The three of us arrived at the church about 30 minutes before the service started. I noticed as I waited for everything to start that this church had a phenomenally diverse range of attendees. There was your typical grandmother with her

all she was so heartbroken, so my dad stepped up and helped her out a lot when their mom died. When my sister was born my dad stayed very positive and tried his best to preserve through the very hard time. My dad knew that life isn't over just because something really bad

I Don’t remember much of my family when I was little, But I can tell you that I am thankful for the family that I have. At the age of two my mom and dad had to make some tough decisions by leaving me in Nicaragua with my grandmother and grandfather , but I don’t want you to think that my mom and dad did not care about me , about leaving me behind. But the reason behind as why my parents had to make that decision was because of my brother Marco who had a heart decease. That in Nicaragua there wasn’t enough resources to make a heart surgery so they decided to live the country to migrate to THE UNITED STATE so they could do a open heart surgery to my brother, in which my brother did not make it . At the age of five year old I remember sitting in the stairs in front of the house, it was a cloudy day while I was sitting their I recall looking at the sky and thinking about my mom and dad were they could be at the time I was looking at the sky.

     Due to the fact that my father was now on his own and trying to raise three children (my older brother from my father’s first marriage), he had to take a different position at his work. Although he was getting a raise it wasn’t necessarily a good thing. He had to start working the night shift so he could get the raise. He didn’t really have a choice in the matter and because of this new change, I began to lose valuable time with him as well. It was now up to my brother to watch over us at night and make sure we got to bed on time. If there was any trouble or and problems in general, my brother would call my grandmother. For three years my dad worked that job and every night he would stay up after he got home to see us. He would make my sister and I breakfast and make we were off to school on time. This meant the world to me because no matter what he always made time for us.

Some of my favorite memories are of my mom, older sister and me, dancing around the kitchen, laughing, sharing memories, listening to Bachata and reading recipes. Some days my family and I baked cakes together and laughed with flour all over our faces. Other days, the loud sounds weren’t of laughter, but arguments with family. “Lizmery, tu sabe to el esfuerzo que yo eh hecho por ti y tu hermana, que te esta pasando?” “Lizmery, you know how hard I’ve worked to give you and your sister everything! What is going on?” My mom asked this every time she received my middle school report cards which exposed my failing grades. My mom arrived to the United States in 1999, alone and pregnant with me. She started working at Gondres Bakery in Jamaica Plain using her mother’s recipes to make cakes for the Dominican Community and create a better life for my older sister and me.

To ease some of the tension off of them, Rica essentially became a surrogate parent for us. It was through my upbring by him that I first learned my basic core principles and beliefs. He would make sure that we played nicely, ate well, washed up, and most importantly did our homework. It was one night that I got up that I saw Rica doing his homework that I understood that he was placing us before himself. As years passed, I saw Rica’s responsibilities grow. He would help my dad at his work in landscaping, do the family finances as a teenager, act as the translator for my parents, take care of any technological mishap that happened, and even became a sort of chauffeur and unwilling driving teacher for us when he got his license. I would later learn to do the finances to help him out. Nevertheless, he would take time out of his day to make sure we were behaving ourselves, did good in school, and even put us in line when whe did something bad. By being the first person in our family to go to and complete college, he showed me the endless potential that I have. I am really grateful that he became our third parent because without him I would not have the strong sense of responsibility and resolve that I

than usual. Being in foster homes was not easy for me or my sister; At times, we got abused for no reason. I wondered every day when I can be granted back to my mother, and will I ever see her again. I used to ask her every time at visitation if we were coming back home. Her response would be “Baby your coming home real soon”. As I got older to realize what was going on it left a part of me empty and broken hearted. And I used to have dreams about so many things as to why I thought I was going through so much pain and heartache. Some of them never came true though I thank God for that. My mom is a very strong individual she lost everything she had. She never really had a relationship with her mother and she never met her dad. She’s from Chicago

Having my dad around all the time wasn’t my everyday routine. I’d see him once or twice a week so I wasn’t very much used to see him every day. One day I came home after school and he and my mom were on the balcony talking, the notice I was staring, they both looked at me and called for a family meeting by the tone of their voices I could tell there was