Struggle Plus Love Equals Happiness | Teen Ink

Struggle Plus Love Equals Happiness

October 11, 2010
By edwingarcia80 BRONZE, Carrollton, Texas
edwingarcia80 BRONZE, Carrollton, Texas
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

My grandparents in El Salvador are the sweetest people you will ever meet, they are both kind, gentle, loving and most important hardworking. My grandparents believe that with hard work and dedication anything is possible to overcome and achieve. This photo was taken around the time I was four years old in a very small, distinctive place called El Salvador. El Salvador is a very small country located underneath Mexico, there is an immense population of poor and a few amount of wealthy. In this photograph I am just beginning to enjoy my hot steamy pupusas with meat beans and tortillas at the side, lunch with my little sister. My grandpa is sitting in a hammock while my sister and I are leaning back on him during our lunch. Our home is very depressing, sad and old because of its surroundings and structure. Living in a home where electricity does not exist, water is obtained from the water well located outside our porch, and going to the river was the way to wash our wash our clothes .My life is based on going to school, coming home to eat and play, play, play. Meanwhile, my grandparents are working on the fields and making food for a little profit to earn some extra money in order to give us the best life possible. The money that my parents send is not enough for us to eat a decent meal. Therefore, my grandparents work their tails off no matter how bad the circumstances are, to give my sister and I the best life possible. My grandparents would do anything for my sister and I to ensure our happiness. If anything describing them as unique, unselfish, and caring wouldn’t do justice for these kind of people. I know my life is great because I will be taken care off, but I know that my grandparents hurt inside because their age is starting to catch up to them, but they make sure to always smile and say “I love you”.
Glancing and staring at this photo it brings me back to a place where I remember how much pain and suffering my grandparents and parents continue to go through so I can be here explaining a photo story to you. My sister and I where raised by our grandparents when I turn four and she turn two, we didn’t have a mother nor a father to play with or to read us stories before bed. We were raised by my grandparents for three years until my parents gathered enough money to pay for plane ticket to reunite our family again. My heart broke into a million pieces like a glass vase hitting the solid tile-leaving my grandparents behind was not easy because they where the only people I truly trust and love. Leaving two amazing irreplaceable grandparents behind is not easy because I didn’t know when I would ever see their nice sweet smiles again.
My grandparents sacrificed a lot to raise me, and my parents risked their lives to give me an opportunity to succeed. My mother was attempting to come to the United States when she was caught and got put in jail for a month. She was lonely and with no one to lean on for help or support, accept for God. She prayed that God will find a way to get her out and to continue her journey to the United States. Her mission was to come to the United States and raise money with my father to buy the tickets to reunite our family. Without the sacrifice that my parents and grandparents made I would probably be another uneducated kid roaming the streets in El Salvador. Many times I sit back and look at this picture and triggering my memory of everything taking place from the time the picture was taken to this very day.
This picture demonstrates the love and care that my grandparents put in to raise me in a country where no one cares about you but yourself. The love and care provided to me through out life and hard situations that took place helped build me into a man with character and goals waiting to be achieve. All the work and time given to me to succeed will not be wasted and be appreciated with all my heart everything that was done. I will not disappointed my grandparents and parents whom helped me get out of a country where life is wasted because education is not possible and brought me into the U.S to get an education to succeed. One day if God permits it my grandparents and parents will see me graduate from college and see a man who succeeded in life.


Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 0 comments.