Gratitude In My Life
My biological mom was blind. It was hard for her to take care of three little girls - me and my two sisters. She decided to take us to an orphanage where there were people to help us instead of abandoning us. I was five years old. What I remember is when my mom dropped me off at the orphanage I didn't know anybody there. As I grew up, I started to make friends and talk more. When I was seven I started to know the nannies better and it was easier for me to ask them for help. I was thankful for them because they fed us, made sure we were showered and made sure we were safe. They even had nurses there to help us when we were injured or sick. There was a principal who made sure that the nannies were treating us well. She was also the person who found us a family from Wisconsin. She cared so much about us that she said if the family only wanted to adopt two of us, she would take my oldest sister so she wouldn’t be left alone at the orphanage. Based on how good she was to us, she was someone I knew I could trust and that she cared about us. The first time I met my adoptive parents on a FaceTime call, I was both nervous and excited. Then on a Tuesday in March of 2022 my parents came to Haiti to take us home. I felt sad and a little scared because I was leaving the orphanage that I lived in for six years. I also felt happy and excited because I was happy to leave Haiti and start a new life. My childhood wasn’t like most of my classmates; I had a lot of experiences that were hard for a child. Even though these experiences were challenging, I am grateful for them. For example, my mom found a good orphanage for us, she didn’t leave us in a place that wasn’t safe. The people there really cared about us and made sure I got an education. My parents adopted all three of us so we could stay together, and gave us a new life with a family. I am grateful for the experiences and people who got me where I am today.
You can use lots of words to describe feelings of gratitude: thankful, fortunate, humbled, appreciative, and blessed. I am blessed to have a house that is big enough for all six of us, parents who help me be the best I can be, more varieties of foods that I like, clean water, and friends that I can hang out with. I am appreciative of clothes and shoes that fit, and a good life with a future where I can get a good job and help others. I am fortunate to have a good school and a supportive family. Being grateful is a lesson I learned from not having some of these things in my life. If everyone was a little bit more grateful, people might appreciate what they have and maybe they would take better care of themselves, their stuff, and their school. If people are more appreciative they might be kinder to people who have less and more understanding of other people's struggles in life.
Lessons are only valuable if you do something with them. I learned to be grateful for the life that I have now with my new family. In the future I can continue to be appreciative to my parents by not abandoning them. I might be able to help my parents with my little brother. He’s fourteen years younger than me. If my parents need to do something for their work I could babysit my brother. I want to go to college to be an emergency dispatcher so that I could help or give back in the way that people have done for me and my family. Someday I could volunteer to help other adoptive kids, so that they know they're not alone. Like what Willie Nelson said, I’ll keep counting my blessings by continuing to help my family.
“When I started counting my blessings my whole life turned around.”
- Willie Nelson
