I Learned to Call You My Family

I am going to write about life. Life is strongly to do with the people we meet. The people who we encounter on our journey and how they change us and how we learn from them. We learn not to make the mistake or we learn to smile about what was and move on with what now is, happily... I was just going through a few photo's. I noticed a few of my "Step Mother Irina". I remember the first times I talked with her she was quiet. I was shocked. When she first said she was from Ukraine I was astonished. What was Ukraine? It is a country by Russia. Since then I have learned a little Russian, about countries other than Russia and similar languages, I have learned culture, tried different foods, I know what it is to love a complete stranger and their family, turning them into your own family, and what it is to lose them, but never will I forget them. I think love is not about what we choose. Love happens and for no reasons at all. I learned to love Irina, Viktor, Olga, and Denys as family. I learned to accept them and to believe in the reality of immigration and how cool it is. I learned a bit of a language I never thought I would be interested in. I learned that it is not about replacing those who we have lost, it is about accepting them as they are and realizing nobody could ever replace them. I will never have another woman like Irina be a step mother figure to me. Nobody could ever be her, she has been in my life for five years. I find it is a hard realization she is going to be gone, I will not have her to show my progress in the Russian language, nor to speak in Russian to, to trot around the Russian store with, to enjoy sushi alongside, to call about life and directions. All I know are the things I have

learned from her. I wish she and my father could be married. I wish she could for real be my step mom, but sometimes what we want... It is not what we get. God's plan for us might not always be what we want him to do. Yet it might be a lesson and this was a lesson. I learned about a culture I never heard of, a language so beautiful and different, about a people and a style, of a country, I learned to love Irina, Denys, Olga and Viktor as they were, to accept them for being who they were. I tried different foods and enjoyed new events, discovered a world outside the world I knew. I do not regret meeting or losing Irina and her family. I wish them all the best and I am thankful to have met them. I hope their lives continue to make a difference like the one on my life. I hope many people around the world are able to learn about another culture, a language and a people. Learn to love them as their own and to accept them as they are. The world revolves around love and acceptance, around different cultures and different languages. They say a smile speaks all and I shared many smiles, many laughs with Irina and her family. I will always have them in my memory. A family I had, learned from, a family I learned to love. A blessing.