Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Thursday, August 03, 2006
20 Years ago today...
Remember the movie "Coming to America" with Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall? Well I have been thinking about that movie today.
Twenty years ago on this day I boarded a plane in Ethiopia and started my own "Coming to America" story. Actually it was a "Coming back to America" story since I was born in the U.S.A. But I was only there until about age three.
On the day I boarded that plane, I was 16 years old. Today, 20 years on, I look at a picture taken on that day at the airport with me, my family, and friends and I wonder:
Of course it is obvious that I did not have a clue about most of those questions! I was only sixteen after all.
All I cared about was, I was GOING TO AMERICA! The America I had seen in the movies at our friend Nancy's house. I was going to drink Coke out of cans and eat apples. I was going to go to McDonald's. I was going to see the snow.
What an idiot? Can you imagine wanting to see the snow?!!
Anyway, they have been a very interesting 20 years. By most traditional measures they have also been successful years.
As I look back, I can't help but be amazed by how fortunate I have been. I have received at least as much credit as I deserve, if not more, and I have not been blamed for more than I deserve. I realize that I have the best parents possible, a great wife that loves me, and my sisters are not bad either. The sisters are not used to me saying nice things about them, so I have to ease them into it.
So today is a special day for me. It is one of those days that marks a chapter in my life. I tend to think of my life so far as consisting of two parts -- Life Part I: "The Ethiopia Years" & Life Part II: "Coming to America - A 20 year journey."
And now it's on to Life Part III - Whatever that might bring.
Twenty years ago on this day I boarded a plane in Ethiopia and started my own "Coming to America" story. Actually it was a "Coming back to America" story since I was born in the U.S.A. But I was only there until about age three.
On the day I boarded that plane, I was 16 years old. Today, 20 years on, I look at a picture taken on that day at the airport with me, my family, and friends and I wonder:
- I wonder if I had any clue that it would be 12 years before I'd go back to visit
- I wonder what was going through my parents' minds that day
- I wonder if I had any idea how much the move would strain my family's relationship with me
- I wonder how different my life would be if there had not been the risk of the government picking up kids my age from the streets, putting a rifle in our hands, and sending us to fight in a civil war
- I wonder what happened to the thousands of Ethiopian kids my age who also had to make a similar trip
- I wonder if I had any clue about how interesting the next 20 years would be
Of course it is obvious that I did not have a clue about most of those questions! I was only sixteen after all.
All I cared about was, I was GOING TO AMERICA! The America I had seen in the movies at our friend Nancy's house. I was going to drink Coke out of cans and eat apples. I was going to go to McDonald's. I was going to see the snow.
What an idiot? Can you imagine wanting to see the snow?!!
Anyway, they have been a very interesting 20 years. By most traditional measures they have also been successful years.
As I look back, I can't help but be amazed by how fortunate I have been. I have received at least as much credit as I deserve, if not more, and I have not been blamed for more than I deserve. I realize that I have the best parents possible, a great wife that loves me, and my sisters are not bad either. The sisters are not used to me saying nice things about them, so I have to ease them into it.
So today is a special day for me. It is one of those days that marks a chapter in my life. I tend to think of my life so far as consisting of two parts -- Life Part I: "The Ethiopia Years" & Life Part II: "Coming to America - A 20 year journey."
And now it's on to Life Part III - Whatever that might bring.
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