I, Elisa Silva, lived in a small town in America; I can’t remember the name though… I was too young at the time. It was 1919 and I was 3 years old. My family, the Silva’s had just moved from Brazil to America to have a better life. We were immigrants, ordinary and poor. Nothing really set us apart from other families. If anything we were un noticed... except by our kind neighbors we lived near in the small town. They were my favorite, I do remember them even though I was young. I remember one day my mother Luisa and father Jaime planned to have a small children of the family portrait taken. It was the only one that we ever took. It did not cost us much because our kind neighbors gave us a discount on the price because they knew we were poor and were grateful for even the little we had. So they took us (Javier my 4 year old brother and Lucia my 1 year old sister and I) to the studio to take a portrait. We were all very excited and dressed in our nicest clothes that we had. A white dress with lace trim and white socks and black shoes was for my outfit. I felt proud to look so nice. The backdrop of the portrait was of an ocean. We chose it because we had never been to an ocean before and loved imagining we were at the beach. It looked glorious with the beautiful blue skies and sand. We sat on a chair in front of the backdrop with Javier on the top and Lucia and I sitting next to each other below him. We took many shots and by the end were getting very hungry and tired. The shot we were able to afford was towards the end when we looked grouchy. That’s what I remember best about that picture, our unhappy faces and annoyance by it taking so long. Even though I know it was supposed to be a perfect picture we didn’t nearly meet up to the standards of it. But our parents loved it anyways. They said it captured our personalities perfectly. My face all scrunched up, Lucia looking as if she was very un entertained and Javier looking very bored as well. I really loved that picture, though. It was very special to me... until we lost it. It happened like this.
One cold, wintery night when I was 5 years old, my family and I were all sleeping and my sister and I heard a loud noise coming from the front of our little house. It sounded as if a couple men stomped into our house. My mother later told me that robbers came into our house and starting taking every single little thing we had, they even away our father. Jaime, my dad, was stabbed in the stomach as he tried to get the robbers out of our house. He was only defending his home and our lives and was killed for it. Once the robbers left, Lucia, Javier and I were crying, un knowing of what had just happened. Our mother explained carefully to Javier and I that our daddy was gone, dead. Also, our picture we had taken was missing. They took everything. We were all so torn apart by this and on top of that by the fact that we had to start over. The next day our neighbors, who were so sweet and took care of us, told us they were going to figure out a way to help us. The next days they started to make us food to eat, new clothes and gave up their extra items they had in their houses to fill up the emptiness in ours. We were shown love by people we had hardly known. The one thing I remember being the most special to me was my teddy bear, Beary. The old grandma that lived next door made me him and he was all for me. I carried him with me around wherever I walked. I never lost him and he reminded me of my daddy that I had lost so many years before. I still have him today and he sits on my bed throughout the day and at night I hold him close to help me grieve over my daddy. My family and I are still living in the same house and each day we thank our neighbors for being there for us when we needed someone the most. I think that God told them to be nice to us. I love him for that, and my Beary.