7 years and Counting... (cont.)

This journey though has not been all fun and games, it’s had quite a toll on my family with stress and issues amongst my uncle and mother over visitation, seeing my cousin’s mother wasn’t in the picture anymore it was just one less worry my mom had to bare on her shoulders. Over the next few years it felt like a constant battle. Whenever Riely would see his father his behavior would change drastically over coming back home leading to huge temper tantrums, few in which resulting in an ambulance and police to come to our house to get him under control. This caused an enormous amount of stress on my mother for years trying to find an answer for these behavioral issues. I think it was shortly after he turned 7 the doctors had diagnosed him with ADHD. Once he started his medication for ADHD his behavioral issues had become less enraged and more manageable. He was having less and less fits and home and his teachers had noticed a drastic improvement in school as well. It has now been 2 years since his last tantrum. It was the day before school started, he was entering the second grade. I would say his last tantrum this last summer day before school was the hardest to get through. This was because he was so out of control and wouldn’t stop his fit we called my grandfather to come and pick him up. My mom packed up his stuff and handed him off to my grandparents to stay with till he learned it wasn’t okay to treat her that way. My mom was an emotional wreck and it broke her heart to do this but she knew she had to do it for him. He stayed with my grandparents for 3 weeks straight with no communication to us at all; finally he asked my grandfather to call my mom so he could apologize to her and tell her he really misses home. He moved back a week after my mothers birthday at the end of September. It was so weird not having him at the house for a month. After that incident we all had changed for the better. We learned to appreciate what we have more because of how fast it could be taken away. We learned to stop taking things for granted because it’s the ones we love that get hurt by it the most. I was an emotional wreck whenever the thought of him not being able to live with us anymore crossed my mind. Having him come into my life and experience all this has been life changing. It has shaped and molded who I have become today. I am a more caring and nurturing person than I could ever imagined myself being, and I hate turning people down when asked for help but I’m beginning to learn now to say no because there is just some people out there that will use you just to get something out of it. I respect my mom and look up to her every time I look at my cousin for taking him into our home to keep him from going to a stranger’s home. She knew that the road wasn’t going to be easy and it was going to have some ugly times, but she believed in not only herself but in us as a family, that if we worked together we could pull through whatever challenges life threw at us. I can honestly say now looking back at the last 7 years that I would not change anything in the world because of where that little boy has lead me to today. He is now 9 years old and in the fourth grade, his behavior has improved so much. It is truly impossible to think that a child at age 9 has already experienced more than half of us go through in a lifetime. As big of a pain as he can still be sometimes and even after all the hell this situation has put us through, I couldn’t love him anymore if I tried. I look to my cousin as my little brother now and will have been living with us for 7 years as of March 6th, 2010. It has been a remarkable learning experience and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

7 years and Counting...

One experience that really had a huge impact on my life and made me who I am today is when my mother brought my cousin into our home under foster care to raise as her own. I was in the sixth grade, I remember the few years before it when they were just discussing the possibility while the courts were still making their decision. He was only 3 years old at the time he made the biggest transition of his life. He had been living with his grandmother in Florida and had not gotten the chance of meeting us prior to the court order granting my mother long term guardianship. This means that unless ordered by the court then my mom is to have full custody of him until he reaches the age of 18. The excitement of meeting my cousin for the first time was a burst of adrenaline and nerves, worried about how he would adjust to his new life, or what if he didn’t like us? Then what would happen to him. The day finally came for my mom to fly down to Florida to pick him up, luckily he attached to my mom fairly well for being passed to a near stranger at 3 years old. They did not get home until 4 A.M. the next morning, which happened to by my dads’ birthday. My mom and cousin had had a very long day between trains and airplanes and delays. Before my mom put him to bed that night after they got home she sat on the couch with him watching blues clues to settle him down, blues clues was his favorite show. The sound of the tv must have woken me up because I remember waking up shortly after they arrived home and was wide awake. I went in the living room to meet my baby cousin for the first time. It was a plethora of emotions that just rushed over me and at 11 years old I was a little overwhelmed. I was happy, excited, relieved that he was finally here, and scared about what was in store for us in the future. Later that morning my mom was kind enough to let my brother and I stay home from school. My sister who was only 2 years older than my cousin was in kindergarten that year, but lucky for her they cancelled all kindergarten classes due to the snowfall. With my cousin Riely coming all the way from Florida where he had lived since he was born had never experienced snow, lucky for him his firsts day in Massachusetts it snowed, A lot! Seeing and watching him in the snow and how he reacted to how cold it felt amazed us all, it was so much fun.

Personal Essay Options

For my personal essay I haven't quite decided what to write about yet. I have had a few experiences that I think impacted me and made me who I am today such as my cousin moving in with us under foster care, and when i challenged myself to the fullest this summer and created a mural from scratch to paint on my baby cousin's bedroom wall. I am not sure which one to choose to write about because one changed me as a person where as the other experience just made me realize what I can do when I actually try.