A Life-Changing Experience

            
             To me a role model is someone in my life that has influenced me in a positive way. They help shape the way I am in the present and what I will be in the future. They are someone that I can look to for advice in a hard situation and know that they will give me words of wisdom. A role model should be sincere and not out for their own good but the good of others. I think that they should be older then I am because they need to have more experience than I do and need to have a deeper insight. There are so many people in my life that have influenced me but there is only one that I can say is truly my role model and that is my mom Vivian.
             My mom was the first born of four siblings, the first one to come to the United States of America and the first one to have a child (me). She was the first for many things and that said "something". She had come to the U.S at the age of 16, my grandfather had asked for her. He had said to her over a phone call the night before her big trip, after a very long shift at work, "limner, (her name before she legally changed it when she came to the states) mija, I need you here, here next to me. This place, this country has all the opportunities you could ever ask for, all the dreams and goals you have for yourself, you can accomplish them here without a doubt, and with your papi believing in you, there's nothing standing in your way corazon mio." This was the conversation that inspired her to become the person she is now. A beautiful and giving woman, who has fought up to this point for all she wanted in life, a life for me and herself.
             When she had me, she was about 20 years old, she had moved from the city to Hamilton, Ohio with my father Pedro into a cute family-friendly suburban house. I was her little surprise, as she said, her bundle of joy. They were happy for a moment in time, but all good must come to an end, as they say. By the time I was 4, they were mostly fighting every other day, my mom asking him why he was coming home so late and him responding, "no te preocupes" ( which is Spanish for don't worry).