Personal Narrative: Moving Back Home

Throughout the seventeen years that I’ve been alive I have witnessed all the sacrifices my parents have gone through ensuring I have a better future than they did. I come from immigrant parents that weren’t fortunate enough to continue studying. I myself was brought into the country when I was two years old so I could build a different path than the one my parents had to take due to financial reasons. Short after, my sister was born my mom got remarkably ill with Diabetes. I would watch in terror as my mother would lay in bed barely able to move. I held her hand, wiped her forehead, with a cool wet towel, and longed she would get all better. Being the oldest in the

When I was at school the other day, my band instructor told me, “You are one of the hardest workers I have ever seen, why do you work so tirelessly if you know that you might fail? I was quite surprised because she has been teaching for 33 years. I responded with your book, Almost Home.

I HAD BEEN ASLEEP QUITE SOUNDLY FOR A COUPLE HOURS, WHEN I WAS AWOKEN BY AN ALL TOO FAMILIAR SOUND. IT SEEMED LIKE EVERY TIME MY BRAIN REGISTERED CERTAIN NOISES - EVEN WHEN I WAS DEEP IN SLEEP, IT SENT OFF A PANIC TRIGGER THAT FLOODED THROUGH MY MIND. THIS WAS ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE TIMES.

The aspect that related to me the most this week was the chapter on relocation. My relocation was actually pretty self-centered in that I wanted to be close to my family after having a child. I remember growing up in Kankakee and coming back for a year after undergraduate studies and having big dreams for the city of Kankakee, but none of these dreams were involved with my decision to move back. When Perkins opens up with the chapter of relocation there is a statement that stood out to me in regard to this matter. “Of the three R’s that anchor the guiding philosophy of the Christian community development movement, relocation is clearly the most distinctive and troublesome.” (Perkins, 75) Relocation to the Kankakee area was easy, because

Hiding behind the stairs, I heard my mom say, “I think our time here is coming to an end.” Overhearing my parents’ statement startled me. Despite being unaware of the plot of this conversation, I hypothesized that some significant change was going to occur in my family’s life. Later, I entered my mom’s room to ask more questions. Unable to digest the most unanticipated and shocking answer in my life, a surge of questions streamed through my head: Why did we migrate from the US to India initially? Now, why are we moving back to the US? Why are they making arbitrary choices right before I start high school? All these questions swamped my mind.

It had been along time since something new had entered my world. Amongst the ruins of our space elevator, I sat, head bowed, and payed my respects to a whole civilization lost. The rusted steel and crumbled mortar only amplified my grief. Rotating my mandibles I rose, and scuttled out into the hive proper, or what was left of it. There used to be noise, movement all accross our home, the workers furthering the goals of our Mother, the advisors contstatly planning our expansion into all of the fertile worlds of our system. Now, as I move through the entrance mound, there is only silence, and the sound of my chitin clicking harshly against the floor, echoing in a way I had once found eirie.

It was February 12, 2006 when our feet touched the “land of the free”. Like many others living in a third world country my parents wanted a better life for their family and through a D.V lottery they finally had the chance to pursue what many would describe as the “American dream”. We stayed with my aunt and uncle. I was excited that we were starting a new life in a different country but little did I know that these several months would be the most challenging and difficult time for my entire family. my mother finally gets a job as a housekeeper, I was too young to understand then but looking back now I realize how demoralizing that would’ve felt for her considering she had such a respectable job back home. My father was always the type of person to keep his

People often hear or maybe seen on the news of houses being broken into. We do our best to protect ourselves and our families from the unenviable happening. We have locks, we purchase alarm systems and other forms of defense to keep strangers out and our possessions in. When I woke up on Tuesday, April 6th, 2011, I never imagined someone would come inside of my home and ramble through my things and take from me whatever they wanted. If I could have seen into the future, I would attempt to change the minds of the guys who broke into my apartment.

My family first moved to America about three years ago in January of 2014. We came as a family of five: my mom, Nava, my dad, Yoav, my older sister, Maya, Me, and my younger brother, Tomer. My parents were born in Israel, but they relocated to boston about 18 years ago and came back to Israel after my older sister was born. This is their second relocation, but their first with a whole family. Just like their first time, they relocated because of my dad’s job. He now works at Microsoft, and he flew to the U.S so much my parents decided to move. I remember coming home from school to see both my mom and dad looking at me. I realized they had something to tell me, and I was very nervous. My initial reaction was to cry. I didn’t want to move away

I don’t really know the reason why they got a divorce, but when they did, I was devastated, because my mom has a lot of children to hang out with her and my dad only has three children, my two younger siblings and I, and I’m pretty sure none of us know how to drive. I always fear to this day since their divorce that when I’m at the other parent's house for the week that the parent that whose house I’m not at will pass away and I won’t know because they won’t be able to tell anyone. My older siblings don’t really visit my dad and he has no family in Idaho, they are living in Florida, and some of my older siblings live somewhere else. I only have three older siblings, they are all in different places, they live in Utah, Detroit, and Ucon.

I left my radio in the back room in was most likely with the volunteer who was covering for me. He yelled at me to "get up" and told me lets talk in Joshs' office (which was a few steps away). Daniel storms in Joshs' office, turns on the light and sits down in the office chair in front of the desk with his arms crossed and a sticky note in his hand. I follow him and prop the door open with the door stop is I say "lets keep the door open it's hot in here." The real reason I did this was because I was extremely uncomfortable. He then yells, "Do you want to tell me where you have been?". I was standing in the door way, not completely in the room when I told him that I met with HR. He asked very angrily who I got permission to leave from and then stated that I left my post without permission.

I woke up on a warm sunny Saturday morning and went down stairs and called my friend Joey Gliech and said “Today is the day!”

Can you imagine being pulled from the only place you have known and loved, and being placed in completely new surroundings? It is not the easiest transition I can tell you that. I’m talking about moving, more specifically, the moment I found out. I was eight years old at the time. I remember my parents coming in and breaking the news to me. Their reason was we simply could not afford to drive back and forth so much. We lived in Peoria, Oklahoma and had been for roughly 7 years. So for most of my life I had lived here. My Dad worked for Pepsi at the time and also was the Chief fireman for the Peoria Fire Department. My Mom worked at Galena’s high school and because of this my sister and I went to school there. The commute to work & school everyday

When my dad and stepmom began talking about moving, I didn’t think much of it. They had moved a lot, so I admit I wasn’t really worried about it. Where they were living then, was my favorite out of all the places they had lived because it was right down the road from my mom’s house. It was easy for my sister, Kelcey, and I to go visit our dad, stepmom, and little sister, Kyra. We could literally just walk, before I had a car, over there almost whenever we wanted. But, that changed when they started talking about moving again.

The two boys walked over the weird kids’ table, where the special needs kids sat. The boys made sure that Johnny’s assistant was nowhere to be seen. “Hey, ugly, what’s up? Are you going to eat like a baby?” RePeat cooned. Johnny started to cry, and everyone in the room heard him. At that point, I decided to return to the blue, vanilla crème brulee smelling table.