My Inspiration

I looked out the small window and saw billowy clouds. We went over Alaska and now we were close to the JFK Airport, I was jumping on my seat, so excited. My mom smiles at me and hugged me. I hugged her with my chubby 10-year-old arms and kissed her. The last time I saw my mom in the Philippines was when I was eight years old and now two years later, we're going to the U.S. together for me to stay with her. She came to work as a nurse in the U.S. She took day and night shifts at Yale New Haven Hospital, always working hard to give me the best education, a private school in Baguio, give me toys, food, and shelter over my head via my grandmother, who took care of me when my mom went to the U.S. when I was three or four years old.

When she comes to visit me, I'm jumping up and down, kissing her and hugging her. I barely let her out of my sight. When she went back to the States, I was crying and not wanting to let her go, so I clung to her hoping that she would stay. Months went by, I had nightmares. To this day, I don't remember much of the nightmares, all I remember was feeling scared and crying. My mom heard about it and she was told by a friend that the nightmares could have been triggered by mom's absence in my life. And so, the process of getting me here to the U.S. started with complications at the embassy in the Philippines and here in America. But still she trudged on, asking Senator Dodd for help to bring me here to stay with her. I was so excited when my papers and passport were through, permitting me to come here in America. It just shows how my mother would go far for me.

My mom is like any moms being overly protective or caring a lot about me when it seems like she's all over my business. I get annoyed with her sometimes, okay, most of the time, because she keeps questioning me or grilling me about every detail of my day. I particularly don't like to be questioned a lot from my mom. But at the back of my mind, I know she cares for me and loves me to actually ask me about my day. We both have the quality of being stubborn and when I don't answer her, she keeps asking me more, which agitates me more. In some way, it's funny that we have that in common, she doesn't speak her mind often, as do I, but when she does, it's something to hear and to learn.

Nobody is perfect. While it's true that not a single person is perfect in every way, I like to think that my mom comes closer to perfection. Mothers do everything from cleaning the house from top to bottom to cooking a light dinner in the evening. My mom has been there practically all my life, she gave birth to me, took care of me even from afar, and love me even if I'm being a brat or something. We have our disagreements and little fights here and there, but above all that I know that she loves me and cares for me. She just wants the best for me as all mothers do. She's my mom. She taught me to