7 prompts into the 300 writing prompts and this one popped up for me and I would say that the greatest blessing is having family in your life. It’s funny you’re born, your parents have this thing called a child and they somehow have to dress it up. My family has been there for me to give me many things and you just wonder if sometimes it is luck of the draw. I know of friends and family where they struggled early on to gain any sort of familial support in their journey. I can say in my recent years that my family has supported with my decisions. The two things that I wanted to accomplish in the last ten years was to buy a car and finish school. I ended up accomplishing both in the last year and I could have done both without their support. I also recently noticed that no matter things may get or if you end up upset at each other at the end of the day, they will be there for you to welcome you with open arms. One example I can think of where they were there for me was when I had been going through my transition of going from community college to upper division at San Jose State.
I mentioned this earlier but I think what happened along the way was that they gave me the motivation to be better than I was. I needed the extra push from my family to do well because I saw them struggle when I was younger. I saw sometimes how my mom would come home sometimes at 6 at night from work taking the bus or my dad who would come sometimes at midnight from work. I would see the little sacrifices made here and there so we can enjoy a better life one day. Every year we would save up and go to Mexico to enjoy the family we had over there. This is before everyone had kids and had obligations and before the world started moving so fast. I felt that back then that my parents wanted to give their own blessings a little taste of who and what their families were like. I can remember every summer we would spend at Grandma’s and everyone was just free and on their own.
To me, this was a blessing behind a blessing because every summer we would see the same cousins and people we knew. I could see that my family wanted us to bond with our family so they can see that expanded family was also a part of us as well. My fondest memory of us all being together was back in 2004 as our time was winding down and me and my cousins were bonding over random conversations. You can see from the beginning that our family wanted nothing but the best for us. I’m grateful for these memories and many others. The human body is susceptible to certain illnesses and one that comes to mind was when my dad was going through a skin disorder and I had to take him and back and forth to appointments. The hardest part was knowing that this person was in your life and now you had to care for them. I bonded with my dad at that point because this was the period in his life when he was still going through his restaurant job as well. We would stay up and watch wrestling together on Mondays and now in some ways that was being taken away from me. He would ask me how and why these wrestlers were fighting and I would need to explain it to him. I was so happy about this whenever we would get the chance to do this but like I said now it was being taken away from me. The moments when I would see him struggle reminded me of the times when I would see him come home late after work and he would still be there to go along with his kids and enjoy their time together. Recently, I also remember my dad would say that he had nowhere as time has gone on, my mom has also started to show some signs of slowing down and this is the impending kidney dialysis that she has with her. I can see her struggling little more now and as time goes on I want to learn as much as possible within the next few years. My brother has given me one of his best blessings which his ability to guide me about various topics. I can remember growing up and the one line that always sticks with me is when I had gotten upset because I was unable to pass my DMV test and he gave me encouragement that day to continue forward. I’m sometimes grateful for him becoming my friend because I learned about how to talk and speak up to people.
Before, I was shy and didn’t know how to take things with people. I often credit my brother for helloing me finish my schooling as well because he didn’t finish school and often we look to our brothers for advice as well. As I go through my older years, I eventually want to be that blessing to my sons as well because the greatest gift you can give to a child is a life full of adventure, warmth, love and understanding of living. Blessings give us the ability to see that life works in a funny way. You’re stuck with your family and you learn to function with them every day. I can see as I get older that I am going to stare at whoever, somebody that I have next to me and see my own family growing right before my very eyes. These are the reasons I think we have blessings: To be able to show us that life can be a fun and exciting time as we grow and learn from each other. I also think the experiences we can provide each other as time goes on to talk about and laugh at these times are the wonderful times we can have. Till next time everyone.
Just Another Day... 