Afghanistan in the early 1980s was a violent and dangerous place that was no longer safe for a divorced woman and her two young daughters, especially when the children are American citizens in a period when the Soviet controlled government was targeting American citizens. Under pressure from the aforementioned reasons, Ayesha, my grandmother decided that it was high time that she and her daughters left Afghanistan. In May 1981, my grandmother decided to leave Afghanistan and by June 28, 1982 she finally made it.
When my mother reached after in 1982 at the age of 14, the first thing she did was find a job. Her first few jobs were only babysitting but she began to work at real jobs from the day that she became old enough to legally work. After graduating from high school, my mother wanted to go to a university but because of financial constraints, she had to start working full-time. After she got married, my mother considered going back to school because there was a second source of income, but she soon became pregnant with me and she once again forsook her desire to acquire a higher education.
Although my mother would never say that she gave up anything in order to have me, I do feel sometimes that she pushes especially hard for me to do or achieve certain things. As a child I was involved in tennis, swimming, soccer, gymnastics, karate, and went to lessons to learn how to play the flute and piano; all of these activities were things that my mother did not have access to while she was growing due to their strained financial situation. Also in terms of school, my mother definitely pushed me very hard in the beginning to do well, because she wanted me, unlike her, to be able to go to a university and acquire an education that would help me secure a high-quality job.
My mother really only had to push me to do well in school until I was 12, at which point I began to want to do well for myself. I began to want to do well so that I could be accepted into a good university and make her proud of me and what I had accomplished thanks to her. I wanted her to see that all of the hard and love she invested in me was worth it and that it was because of her that I had come so far and achieved so much. So why do I do what I do? I do what I do for her.
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