Personal Narrative: How My Mom Changed My Life

My mom is a slender, tall woman who moved away from her family at a young age. She has blue-green eyes and blonde hair with brown highlights. She is full german with two brothers and one sister. She has three children, one already having a child, and the other two attending Bremerton High School. My mom was born near the Dutch border in a small town in Germany called Ahaus. She lived in a two story house with her siblings, parents, and her grandmother. The town was small and very flat so she could walk everywhere she needed to. She went to elementary school for four years then attended the local high school for nine more years. It wasn’t a random thought to move to the U.S, she was influenced by a man she met while working in a big hotel.

Although she understood English, she could not speak it very well or as fast as the people around her could. “Sometimes, I would just nod my head or laugh as if I understood what some people were saying and hope that my reaction fit with what they were talking about,” she admitted. Even though it was a difficult transition to switch from a European lifestyle to an American lifestyle, she grew up with the man’s family, who happened to be very nice and very helpful. “I remember the very first thing I did was eat a circular glazed donut, they did not have that in Germany and it was extremely delicious,” she

She moved to be an apprentice working in the hotel industry for two years. Then after she worked at a different hotel for two more years, and went to a different department or “section” of the hotel every three months to learn more and more about hotels and how to operate in each section. Twice a week she was in school learning how to serve people in a restaurant, how to make beds properly, how to clean a room, etc. When she moved away from her family, she realized that there was no one that would cook for her, clean for her, or look after her. She had to do everything herself, and she finally understood the cost of living. She understood the difficulty of paying bills, signing paperwork, and the usual things that parents are supposed to take care of. “It was such an eye opener to understand what life is really like, and what it’s like to be an adult and to be responsible for everything,” she