Of all the people in the world, I have the most respect, and owe the most gratitude, to my parents. Both of them raised my two sisters and me to be independent and to stand on our own feet. They both ran their own stores to support us in our everyday lives and to provide us the best education.  They believed education was important and would open up opportunities for us that were not available to them. We were not sent to posh schools, but schools where we had to work hard and even perform manual labor. As children we did not think it fair that we were sent to such a school while our friends were sent to schools were they were spoon-fed everything. At this point in our lives we are glad they had done so because it has prepared us better for life after high school.

My younger sister and I came to the U.S. to further our education at a university right after we finished high school. Around the time I had finished high school my mother began suffering from depression. This was a problem we had never heard of or had to face. Even though my mother suffered daily she still wanted us to have the opportunity of a better life through further education. My father wanted the same as well. It would be the first time that we would be a whole ocean away from our parents. At that time we were too excited to even think what it would be like for our parents to have to let us go.

My sister and I graduated in May of 2006 and we began working. My sister managed to get a long-term job whereas I only got one for a year. My youngest sister left for Australia in January of 2007 to university.  After a year of working, I came back to university to work on a Masters degree.

It was about this time that my father fell sick. Within a few months he was practically at death’s doorstep.  Due to being sick and having to fly out of the country for treatments, his businesses did not do so well and we were in a financial crisis. Having a sick husband and creditors to deal with did not make it any easier for my mother’s depressive condition. It was then that I decided to go back home to look after my parents and try to run the business and work on a way to pay back debts that had accumulated.

Going back home I saw what condition my parents really were in and how both would just never give up getting their lives back on track to how it was before. After being there for a year, they began pushing me to come back to the U.S. to finish my degree. And now I am here, still worried about my parents well-being and financial stability, yet they are the ones who constantly assure me that everything will be alright and not to worry.

I believe that it is because of my parent’ hope and faith in each other and in us that we sisters have become the people we are today. If it were not for the way they raised us I do not think that I would have had the courage to go back home and face the pressure and worries they had to; or that my younger sister would take up the financial responsibility to put my youngest sister through university in Australia; or that my youngest sister held up her studies to deal with my mother’s depression. All I can hope is that I can instill in my children the same values that my parents have instilled in me.

Aashka  
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