Personal Narrative: In My Life

“Why do they want me to sing?” I think to myself as I leaf through the immense mass of the karaoke song book on my lap. My foster family erupts with encouragement as I finally punch in the numbers for “In my Life” by the Beatles on the TV remote. As the lyrics appear on screen, I open my mouth and sing with the grace of a 7-year-old whose foot got stuck in a door, yet the resounding shouts of “no” gave me the reassurance to finish the song. I sit on the couch as I watch the rest take their turns on the karaoke machine, each of them receiving the same amount of enthusiastic screaming as I did. When I was in grade 10, I was given the chance to meet these wonderful people. Our batch had been assigned the Damay Immersion – a 3-day community building program which had students “adopted” by families living in impoverished areas. My foster family, who lived in the province of Bulacan, welcomed me as their son. During the first day of my stay, I learned of their love of family and the unfathomable amount of passion that

I had feverishly texted my foster father, telling him that I heard what happened, and that I hoped that they were doing okay. The next few months, we texted back and forth, telling me of how he had nobody to come back to at 4 am, how much it hurt him to ask his neighbors to take care of his daughter while he was gone, how he rarely used the karaoke machine anymore, all while he repeated his touching remarks of “no” and “yes” Listening to these problems and cheering him on as he went to work during early mornings seemed to make him feel better. We also talked about my problems in adjusting to grade 11, which seemed to make him happy. He always cheered me on after listening, his jubilant spirit still