June's Guest Post... My ♥cousin Doris♥:
Ok, so I’m about to find out how well I write LOL, I never did this before but I’ll try to do my best…
I wasn’t really sure what to write about, but after thinking and thinking I decided to write about a little part of my life...After all, I always told myself I could write a whole novela (Spanish soap opera) with all the things I’ve been through, but I wouldn’t finish today so I’ll just tell you a small part of it. The chapter that affected my life the most. I’ll call it…
“A journey to be humble”
For the ones who don’t know me, I met Marisol maybe a week after I came to United States, about 9 years ago. She has been one of the most important people in my life since the beginning, she’s not only my cousin but one of my best friends, the one who was asked to take me out and wasn’t even sure why but did it anyway and that’s how we found out we had so much in common. That day we went out made me feel a lot better, because for some reason I had it in my head that living here was going to be the worst thing ever, without my friends…yes, with my family but without my friends... a very important part of my life.
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| Me and Marisol |
Coming to this country made me a totally different person, a whole new person was born through the experiences over the years. We had difficult situations as a family in Guatemala like everybody else does. Kind of like a roller coaster sometimes up, sometimes down but somehow we always knew we would make it. However, moving to this country became a totally different level of difficulty. Here is where I completely understood people that usually do what are considered “lower class jobs.” That’s what I used to think of them before. The lady that used to clean our house, the one that used to iron all our clothes even the guy that used to the garden or the one that washed our cars; I guess for a while we had it easier than other people in Guatemala. I know you hear Guatemala and people wonder if we even have phones down there or get amazed when they hear we have cable!! Yeah, believe it or not I’ve found some people like that. Anyway, It’s a city just like this one, there’s a lot more crime and violence down there but about the same stuff we have here. I really thought I was a humble person, but I wasn’t even close to being the person I thought I was. Everything turned upside down from one day to the next. Our economic situation was suddenly not that good anymore due to my dad losing his job. Next I hear my Mom talking about coming to United States. First I thought we’ll get through this, like we always did, but I guess my parents knew this time was going to be different since they wanted us to finish school and keep our house and none of it was getting any cheaper down there. So my Mom bought the ticket. My uncle had come already a year before so my Mom felt some comfort knowing there would be someone waiting for her, and there she went. I just remember I cried myself to sleep that night thinking how I was going to survive without her being with me.
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| My Mom and Dad. |
My dad stayed with us, he got another job where he was making a lot less and it just wasn’t the same anymore. I was left with my Mom’s responsibilities, a big, big load on my shoulders since I wasn’t used to any of that, like the cooking, the washing, and a lot more stuff that Moms usually do. Here is the part where I appreciated my Mom the most and didn’t really know how much she did for us until she was gone. This part gets me very emotional, because I can’t really explain how much I missed her in words. Four months later my Dad decided to leave to help out my Mom, and so my two brothers and I stayed by ourselves...very hard by the way since my brothers were in their teenage years and believe me that it’s a hard thing to handle when parents are not close. I had to mature from one day to another, not that I wasn’t mature enough for my age, but this was a whole new level of maturity, to be able to handle all the stuff I had in my hands, we were alone for a whole year and so I used to think it was the worst year ever. Every day I woke up wondering what’s going to go wrong today?? Struggle with money every month, crashing with a motorcyclist on my birthday!! Yes on my birthday! Really bad by the way, but I didn’t kill him so I guess that was something good. Fights with my brother because I started acting like a “Mom”, the car braking down almost every month…really, going through the day wasn’t an easy task. Thankfully, God always put people around me that gave me emotional support and helped me go through that very rough year even though I really didn’t want to come to USA I couldn’t wait to be with my parents again.
Now I turn back and see that this experience made me stronger (I thought this picture would describe it LOL), it taught me that nothing lasts eternally, like you feel it will and to appreciate the parents God gave you. The time finally came to get on a plane and move to the US. I was kind of sad since I was leaving everything behind, I only took a suitcase that looked like it was about to explode since I tried to fit all my stuff in it. I was sad because I was leaving important people in my life, friends and family; but the happiness over passed the sadness knowing that I was going to see my parents again. When I saw everything here for the first time, everything looked so big; I loved the new smell in the air, weird huh? But I’m sure anybody can totally tell there is a different smell on the stuff here when you come for the first time… I got to the house where my parents where living and when they opened the door an explosion of feelings and emotions crashed into me I didn’t know if I should cry or laugh but I ended up doing both. I couldn’t wait to tell my Mom how hard it was to not have her by mi side, even though we used to talk on the phone often it wasn’t the same, I hugged her as tight as I could and didn’t want to let go the same with my dad. Little did I know that this was only the beginning of a journey, a long, long journey that took me from cleaning houses, something I never thought I would ever had to do to finding out my dad had a part time job in a car wash, something that was very hard for me to accept since I always saw my dad as the boss or working in a suit, to helping my Mom take care of a baby with brain damage that showed me how blessed and lucky we are to be alive and be able to walk, talk and do everything we do and take for granted sometimes, to struggling with the culture shock and not being able to communicate since it took me some time to feel confident speaking English.
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| With my brothers on my wedding day. |
Seeing my brothers work in warehouses getting as dirty and tired as a person can get lifting heavy boxes loading trucks. Here is where I used to cry the most because I never wanted to see them like that, the worst thing to deal with on top of everything was being illegal and having to lie or hide like if you’re a criminal, there was so many times my stomach ate itself from being so nervous thinking “they’re probably will find out I’m not legal” but just kept praying to be able to be strong and have the peace I so much needed. Here is also where I got closer to God, he was the only one to give me the strength and the hope I needed to continue this hard journey. I got my first job all thanks to my cousin, Yessenia, who by the way told me something I won’t ever forget and has taken me far “You won’t lose anything by trying, the worst thing they can tell you is NO.” Also, the help of Marisol, who by the way helped me a lot when I answered the phone and didn’t understand a word they were saying and of course thanks to God cause I wouldn’t be able to do anything if he wouldn’t open the doors for me. I worked there like a year and a half but the company wasn’t doing too good witch by the way brings back a lot of memories when it was time to cash our checks LOL, right Maso? Just when I was about to give up on that job, God once again opened doors, in the form of a phone number and a call for a new and better job for me and my brother, and that’s how we started going up the ladder still struggling sometimes but not as much as before and always seeing God’s hands in all we did. We are some of the lucky ones that were able to fix our legal situation here too.
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| With my Husband. |
This is just a little bit of my journey, a journey that made me the person I’m now. I appreciate everything I have more, now I know that it doesn’t matter what kind of job you do, you are no different than anybody else and it made me a lot stronger, even more than I thought I was. Now, I have the family I always knew I wanted but my dreams didn’t even get close to what I have now. I found the man of my dreams, of course being from different cultures made it difficult in the beginning but somehow we make it work with God’s help of course and two beautiful little girls that make my day every time I see them smile. So yes, life is hard sometimes but there is hope, nothing lasts forever that’s is why we should enjoy every minute and learn as much as we can from difficult situations because I’m sure whatever we learn becomes a tool in the future.
Doris
