“I lived in an apartment with you aunts and my mother, then I went back to Guyana to marry your father.”This is how my mom’s story of her beginnings in America always starts.  “We didn’t want you three to grow up like we did, cutting cane, herding animals, living in poverty.  We wanted opportunities for our children.  We decided it was time to leave Guyana and come to America.” 

      I once wrote about my dad leaving Guyana, and made up that he turned around and looked back at his family with tears in his eyes.  My parents laughed and my dad told me: “once you leave Guyana you don’t want to go back.”  Now my mom really resents going back, since she has no reason to.  After my maternal grandmother passed away my mother seemed to have rejected the idea of returning to Guyana.  To her Guyana reminds her of a past where she was constrained by the shackles of poverty.  In America she has gotten rid of those shackles and can help provide a future for us.  What she wants most for us is to “get a good education,” which is unlikely to do in Guyana.

            I thought my parents had some harsh remarks about Guyana, but as I grow I understand where they are coming from.  They love their country, but at the same time they know that for the future of their children it isn’t the place to be.  For this reason, I reject failure as an option because my parents made it their duty to provide a flourishing future for my siblings and I.