Aunner Calderon
Union High School
“A Mother with Courage”
A mother is a parent of a child, but a mother with courage is a parent of a child who would do anything for her family, especially her children. I’ve been undoubtedly blessed with a wonderful single mother who has known how to overcome not only physical and emotional adversities, but also economic difficulties. She has been a mother who has raised my siblings and me with manners and values. She has taught us how to be optimistic, respectful, honest, responsible, authentic, and generous. Most importantly, she has taught us how to never give up on our dreams and goals in life. Something that she always says is the “with persistence and hard work, anything is possible”, and I totally agree with her because I have put those values into practice to achieve things that seem to be impossible, and I have had very positive outcomes. Her courage to keep her morals and values even through adversities inspire all of her children today.
My mother was married for 25 years. During those 25 years of marriage, as she says, she “was extremely blessed to give birth to six children”, but she was also a victim of domestic violence. Her first child was a beautiful little girl named Rosmery. When Rosmery was born, my parents were living in extreme poverty and when Rosmery got a pulmonary infection they could not afford to pay to take her to the hospital, and as a result she died. My mother says that the day that my sister died, she felt like her life was being destroyed, but that she knew that she had more children to look after. A couple of years after my little brother Lland (John) was born, my mother could not handle the domestic violence anymore and decided to ask for a divorce. Little did she know she would not get a divorce, but instead the domestic violence would get worse. She knew that an environment with violence was not good at all for her children, so she armed herself with courage and moved to the United States with her five children.
This is where my mother’s true courage came, to come to a foreign country where she did not know the culture nor the language, and in addition she had five children to take care of. Although she did not know how to speak English at all, the first thing she did when we arrived at the U.S. was to enroll her children in school, so we could learn the language and have a better future and life. Even though she couldn’t’ work because she had to go through the immigration process at that time, she would cook Guatemalan food and sell it to people. This way she could make some money to help my older brother and sister pay the bills, rent, food, etc. Her courage during this time to put herself out there to people she could not understand just to provide for her family, is enough to me to show how courageous she is as a woman.
I remember the first year in a U.S. school being very hard and full of insecurities because I did not know how to speak English, but my mother was always there giving me her support and unconditional love. When I would academically doubt myself because I did not speak English, I remember my mother telling “great things are not easy to accomplish, never give up son because difficult doesn’t mean impossible.” Every time that I would feel like giving up, my mother’s words always came to my and and those words were what pushed me forward and changed my life. This is how she passed on her courage to me as a young man who was trying to deal with some of the same difficulties she shared.
Today, I am a student at Union High School currently in my junior year. I am a student that is very dedicated towards his education and a person who works very hard for my future, not only to have a better life but to help my mother and give her the life that she deserves and give her something back for everything that she has done for my siblings and myself. Thanks to my mother’s support, I’ve been part of the Union High school Honor Roll since my freshman year. Now I am taking Advanced Placement as well as college classes, maintaining a cumulative grade point average of 3.9, and I completely understand that this would not be possible without my mother and her incomparable courage.
Courage describes my mother complexly. She survived abuse and acclimated to a new country, as well as producing children who are successful in their academics and definitely will be contributing to our community in some way. Thanks to everything my mother has taught me, I aspire to become a Physicial Assistant with courage to help people in their times of need and provide them an excellent healthcare.
