Her world is small - for my Ma & Papa (heart)
I grew up in a very conservative household. Thinking outside our culture, religion, and morals was in a way forbidden. After moving from India to America, everything that was once forbidden, was being publicly exposed in front of our eyes. Another culture, numerous religions, was all beginning to introduce itself to us young-ins, not so much to our parents.
Our parents soon begin to THINK that they made a mistake bringing their family here. They felt their kids were slipping out of hand. They too were learning and adjusting just like we were, but they had more will power and more importantly each other in their growth, while we had new friends, new language, and new culture.
Throughout the years, as we grew older, we began thinking that our parents have it all wrong. We started questioning our upbringing, their methods, their teachings. We found more flaws than strength. We began to grow apart from them. We began hurting them, by talking back, walking away, disputing everything they said. All in the name of WE ARE RIGHT, and YOU WERE ALWAYS WRONG.
I cannot speak on behalf of my siblings, but I definitely felt a wave of detachment from my parents. I began to feel that I was stepping away from my roots, my culture, and my people. Not a single day went by where I didn't think about my parents and what they had built for us. I slowly began remerging myself into what I thought was completely lost in me.
I went back to India! Back to where everything started, where we walked, where we played, the friends we made, and I realized my parents world was so small, in which they gave us birth, and soon we became part of their small world. I began understanding their mindset and why we moved as a family to America.
We are so quick in blaming others, but we don't take the time to fully comprehend why people make such decisions. My parents moved to America not to make their lives better, but rather to give us and provide us with the life and education they did not get as kids. They wanted us to succeed, become better versions than them. And we did! They knew life was going to be hard, people were going to be different, cultures and religions were going to mix, our kids will start slipping, they knew all of it, but they took a risk anyway, for us.
It was all part of the journey. So today, as my Ma watches her recent birthday video, with all her kids around her, her family around her, it makes her bloom because one day she knew that their efforts won't go to waste. That their kids won't let them down. It takes some serious, smart, and patient parenting to take three young kids to a whole different country.
My parents are my heroes and there's no one like them. So much for a small world huh? hahaha. Thanks for watching and reading my short novel.
