Roots Everywhere

February 6, 2012

Roots Everywhere
      For a long time I never felt like I had a home. I could see often in the movies where a home was filled with love, children laughing, a dad kicking the ball to his son. I could see the traditional Thanksgiving gathering, a boy throwing a stick to his dog. To me this is the image that I considered a home.
      I grew up in a crowded city in New Jersey. My parents took me there after growing up in Guatemala for the first nine years of my life. To me Guatemala was home. It is a place where you can sleep with your windows open, your doors unlocked, your bicycle in the front yard and not worry about a thing. Not worry about someone coming into your home to rob you.
      I lived with my grandfather, grandfather and an aunt that was only a couple of years older than me. In my eyes I saw her as a big sister and grew up respecting her and eventually realizing the real title that she possessed. I went to a small school where everyone knew your parents, so there was not much you could get away with. After school we would get together with all the neighborhood kids and hunt for possums.
      The weather was always sunny and beautiful. Although the summers were brutal because it would get so hot and humid that you could barely stay under the sun but the river that ran through the town was a great relief during those hot summer days. Although I was only six years old I could remember like it was yesterday that I almost drowned in that river.
      I was often reminded that one day I would have to leave. That my parents would eventually come for me but to me, my grandparents were my father and mother and I grew up calling them just that. Our home was filled with not only love but also a great respect toward each other. I trusted my grandfather with my life and greatly loved him.
      All that changed in the fall of 1987. My parents eventually came for me and took me to what would become my new home in New Jersey. The...