My adventure began in the month of July 1998. I was inside oblivion where darkness shrouded my life, but at midnight, a light of hope grasped me. That was the moment; I was brought to life outside the unimaginable darkness. My name is Tasnim Ahmed, but most of the people I know call me by the name "Abir." This isn't a special name that I was bestowed upon; rather, it's my nickname that my parents gave me after I was born. The meaning of the word "Abir" in Bengali is the color of the dusk or just color in Hindi (Indian). Some says a person's name reflects one's personality, and that would describe me being colorful and social.
In truth, I am just an average teenage boy whose mind warps into a space-time dimension where I make a journey around the whole universe alone, and I meet different planets and stars along the way. This internal journey that I make is one of the most ecstatic adventures that I experience everyday. Just like people have their awe-inspiring moments in life, they even experience their own melancholy. My doleful moments in life come from loneliness. Since I was young, I have been experiencing isolation: neither of my family members stayed at home because of their work, and I had to stay alone watching television or doing homework. In the beginning, I was very sad, but as time moved on, the depression diminished as I learned to control my sentiment towards isolation.
There was a drastic turning point in my life in July 2012 when I was 12 years old. I realized I would no longer be in Bangladesh, my homeland. I left a fragment of my heart back there where I had so many memories with my relatives, which will never fade, and I will forever cherish those memories. The moment I heard we would be leaving Bangladesh for America, my heart shattered. On the other hand, I was happy to visit a new country since I loved travelling, and I have a dream of travelling the whole world one day. When I asked how we got the opportunity to travel to the US, my mother answered with a big smile, "Your dad won the lottery." I never really understood the value of that lottery and presumably I won't, but all I knew back then was that I was going to have the most amazing adventure of my life. Truth be told, that "amazing adventure" according to my parents is studying and getting good grades.
The twenty-four hour adventure was very stressful, but I wasn't bothered by the stress at all. In fact, I enjoyed the whole adventure on the airplane. When we were landing, it was 10 am in the morning. I was gazing outside the window to see how New York looked. I was mesmerized by the view. It was like a completely different world to me. The very first scenery I saw at that time was the Atlantic Ocean followed by a land, which now I know of as "New York City." When our airplane landed, I was gazing outside for a long time looking at the other planes. At that time, I had a hobby of memorizing different airline names. That's how I gathered knowledge on Aviation engineering.
Anyways, when we went out of the airport, my "grandfather" (my mother's cousin's brother's father in law) was waiting for us instead of going to his work. My "grandfather" wore a black suit with a tie, and he was tall. At his age, he helped us with our heavy luggage. When I saw him first, he didn't look that old. I guess that's how people are in New York since they are constantly on the move, which makes them look younger. But then I found out he was my grandfather so I figured he might be in his 50s. He was more than just young; he had a heart made of pure grace. Since day one he helped us a lot and still does today. My family and I can't do anything to repay the assistance given by this man, even though he is a relative of mine.
After 9 days, I was very bored living alone without television and video games. Sometimes, I cried a lot and acquired monophobia. My mother couldn't stand to see the sadness in me so she called my grandfather. Since I was into video games, he took me to Best Buy, taking a break from work, in the month after I arrived. When my mother and I apologized to him for making him work hard he said, "My grandchild yearned and I will not give it? That's impossible!" I was so happy that I was tearing up inside. Since I never saw my real grandfathers from either side of my parents, I felt like that's how grandfathers take care of their grandchildren. At that moment and still now, I treat him as my real grandfather. If one day I could thank him, I wouldn't just thank him by saying "Thank you grandpa," I would thank him like how a real grandson would do for his grandfather, by fulfilling his wishes, and always keeping him in my prayers. Also, helping him in the future when he will be unable to do things for himself after aging.
The day I was admitted to school in September 9th, 2012, I was silent the whole day. I didn't know how schools work in the United States since everything seemed new to me. The hardest thing for me was to adjust with different races because in Bangladesh, we are all from the same nation. In this school at the beginning, things seemed eccentric to me.
Eventually this absurdness shattered and I could make friends from different nations, which is one of the most interesting things that happened to me. This is because I get to know more things about the culture, language, and also new things from their country that I never knew of.
The most bewildering thing about United States back then for me was the climate, both the temperature and the weather itself. According to what I know, the rest of the world uses Celsius as temperature, but only the United States uses Fahrenheit for measuring temperature. In Chemistry class, I have done a lot of calculations on Celsius to Fahrenheit and vice versa, but here, it was a completely different story. Slowly, I have gotten adjusted to it by using this unit always to check the weather. On the other hand, the weather itself was absurd to me. The weather pattern changes all the time. An exaggerated example would be: on Monday it's sunny, Tuesday it rains, Wednesday it's windy, Thursday it snows, Friday it's a storm and so on. Now when I look into the weather pattern, it doesn't feel weird at all since I have lived with this weathers for four years. If I go back to my country, I wouldn't feel comfortable with the weather since the climate is hot most of the time due to the country being directly on the Tropic of Cancer.
Now, I am a senior in Newcomers High School, about to step out into a new adventure of life, and in a different time. I still grasp the goals of my life that are protected by the hardships that I encountered, and the bonds of my family including my grandfather. I can proudly say that the point in life I am in now would not be the same without the hardships and fascinating experiences that I have encountered in the past. Every moment and every bit of help that I got from people, especially my grandfather is more than a cherished memory; rather, those were events that helped me grow to be who I am right now.
June 3rd, 2008. My family and I arrived in the United States for the first time of our lives to visit. We stayed in a distant uncle's house at first. He couldn't give us enough time due to his work, so we had to stay at home most of the time. Sometimes his wife, my family, and I went out to pick his daughters from school. After a week, the lifestyle, people, and the country itself seemed bewildering to all of us solely because it felt like we were in a completely different world. We were in daze, but eventually we had our turning point. My mother's friend lived in Astoria, New York City. She sent her elder son to pick us up to take us to her house. It was a rainy night, and he still came to pick us up from his work. Their house was small with two rooms and yet, they welcomed us like we were family. He took days off from his work to take us to different places like Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and many different places. After two months when we were leaving the United States in August 17th, 2008, he told us something that I will forever cherish and remember. After we thanked them, my aunt's son told my mother:
"it's nothing aunty. I did this for you because we once faced your situation and we didn't want any other person to go through that especially someone close like you people. I did this so that you learn and help others in the future just like I did."
Those words were always inside of me. Recently in November 2015, I met a new boy who joined Newcomers High School. He was always alone and sad. I watched him from a distance, but I didn't have enough willpower to talk to him at the beginning because of my shyness. Soon, I shattered that fear and talked to him for a long time. I wanted him to feel like people are with him even if he came to a new place. Our friendship grew stronger each and every day. As a freshman in 2012, I never got any help from the seniors. I didn't want that to happen while I was a senior in Newcomers High School. At first, I helped him get adjusted to living in the United States with the harsh conditions they were living through such as financial crisis, isolation, and depression. I tried to get his hopes up by taking him somewhere nice like Roosevelt Island, Forest Park, and several other places. Since he had no Internet at first, I tried to go with him to the Time Warner Cable Company to set up a connection at his house. We talked every day on the phone and he never once thought of going back to Bangladesh.
I felt very happy that I could finally understand what my brother meant when he said, "you learn and help others in the future." Most of all, I felt a warm emotion deep in my heart by helping someone who was a freshman and now one of my closest friends. On May 5th, 2016, I met another boy who recently joined Newcomers High School. His case is completely different from the previous one. He is not from my country, and he did have a lot of friends to talk to. However, when we were in the lunchroom together, he seemed upset. I didn't go talk to him since he had friends with him, so I felt scared. I asked him later on why he was upset. He answered me by saying he was concentrating on his food. I understood that he was sort of lying to me so I talked to him a lot. Eventually, he trusted me and shared his feelings. It turns out that he loves a girl very much; the girl says that she likes him but hangs out with different boys. He got upset and frustrated. I listened to him and gave him feedback. He wanted to go back to his country, but I stopped him and gave a lot of positive thoughts. He seemed very happy when I told him a lot of stuff about love and life and to always be happy no matter what. He became a close friend to me as well and I feel really great to have kept up my brother's legacy of helping others, turning it to my ambition. This is how I welcomed two people in a row while they faced hardships in their lives.
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