I never met my biological father, and everything that I learned about him had a negative connotation. My parents never married, but they practically were. They were both young when they met and as immigrants, they relied on each other. The bottom line was that he left and he wasn’t coming back. Except, what really happened was that he had received his 3rd DUI 6 months after I was born and he was deported back to Guatemala. My mom never went into the details but he was physically and verbally abusive towards the end of their relationship, and having a child didn’t really set him on a path to change his habits. Years later, I found out he married someone in Guatemala, and he had a son. They would take trips to Canada for the holidays, and his new wife would post pictures on her facebook. They seemed happy. Growing up I never even questioned it; I had a mom, and that was all I needed, that was all I had. My mom was awesome, she couldn’t speak a lick of English and yet she managed to support me and my younger sister. I had to help on occasion, especially when it came to filling out paperwork that was in English such as medicaid, food stamps, doctors appointments, etc. I could handle it though, I was a big girl, I had to. There were times when I needed help with my homework, and because my mom couldn’t help and there was no else, I would have to venture off to my neighbor’s house and have her older son tutor me. Sometimes he wasn’t home and I had to sit with my homework, tears dripping down my sheet, waiting for an answer to come to me. Those were the moments where I knew, “There had to be a better way.” Regardless, I think I had a good childhood, even if I had to mature a little quicker than most. Whenever my mom had to work and there was no family available to take care of me and my sister, I would go to a family friend's house. This family friend also had kids, some older than me and one younger daughter. Her husband was Mexican, and he worked as a welder. I remember he was super sweet and would always offer me rice pudding after coming home from work. He had a thick mustache and he always reminded me to read my bible and pray. Sometimes when me and my sister would be at their house over the summer, he would come home to grab some lunch and you could tell he was really tired. But despite that, he would still scoop his baby daughter up and hold her high in the air until all you could hear were her squeals of laughter fill the house. Sometimes he would scoop me up and I would spread out my arms like I was flying. When my mom’s brother moved in, every weekend we would drive to a taco truck and he would buy me two tacos de lengua, but I always asked to hold the “césped”, which translates to grass when I really meant hold the cilantro. He would laugh and say ok, and he would bring me back my two tacos and juice. He bought me a bike when I turned 9 and my mom and her friend taught me to ride it. Even though I never had a dad growing up, I did have my mom, my family, and the belief that I had enough to be happy.