Let's Start With Me

This little girl is me at the age of 2. This picture was taken when I went with my mother to visit relatives in Greece.

 

As you can tell from the picture, I look pretty happy with a cookie in my mouth.  Not just a cookie but a Greek pastry cookie nonetheless.  At an early age, I was learning how to travel and connect with some of my relatives that were part of my culture and heritage.  I could not have engaged in those experiences had it not been for the independence and strength of my mother.  At the time of this visit to Greece, my mother was pregnant with her third child after losing her second child to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) almost to the year before and was traveling with a two year old to Greece. 

 

As a child, I learned independence, kindness, strength, patience, and love from my mother.  While I also learned from my father, it was my mother who I learned from the most.  My parents divorced when I was eight and my sister was six.  The divorce was stressful for my sister and I and of course our parents, but I often felt like I was in the middle of a constant battle between my mother and father.  I managed to maintain a close relationship with both of my parents, appreciating what each had to offer me in my development.  Both of my parents could agree that family was important and gave my sister and I plenty of opportunities to visit with each side of the family.  The closest relationships I have are with my sister and mother because we depended so much on each other through the most difficult times.

 

Was it difficult being a child of divorce?  Absolutely!  I am not going to sugar coat it.  At the time my parents got a divorce, I was one of maybe two kids in my school that had divorced parents.  My teachers did not know how to react or connect with me because they had not experienced divorce themselves and did not know a lot of families that had experienced divorce.  This caused a great deal of difficulty for me trying to concentrate being a student while not having anyone to talk to what was going on in my life.  Being the oldest child, a lot of pressure was put on me to know what was going on and somehow relay it to my younger sister.

 

Forward thirty-eight years later and I am married with four children with one of those children in college.  I have been able to pass on some of those important values that were important for my mother to pass on to me.  Family is also important for our family and I strongly believe that our children are able to have strong relationships with others because of our closeness as a family.

 

As I continue my life journey and especially my journey in education, I want others to understand that relationships matter, whether negative or positive, and can have an immense impact on a person and his/her development.