‘What would have been?’. This is a question that often crosses my mind as when I was around one-year-old, I was adopted by an American family and journeyed from a small, underfunded orphanage in the Moscow region to a new house in the United States. Considering my young age at the time, I don’t remember anything about life in the orphanage; however, as an extremely curious and inquisitive young child, I often used to interrogate my adoptive parents to see what they knew about it. Unfortunately, they didn’t know much, besides, the fact that my birth mother was too poor to care for a child, and that I survived one of the worst orphanages in Moscow.
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A question that still lingers in my mind many years later is ‘What would my life be like if I had not been adopted?’. This question was partly answered by searching the Internet of ‘Life after leaving a Russian orphanage’, where I found numerous websites, each providing a glimpse into the life I would have had. Every article I stumbled across pertained to the harsh ways that the orphans are treated, which in turn led to the young either signing themselves out of the system or choosing to stay, endure the abuse, and eventually age out of the system. Either way, they find themselves extremely unprepared for the challenges of the ‘real’ world, and most eventually become homeless and typically addicted to drugs and/or alcohol. In fact, many children are introduced to drugs and alcohol while still in the orphanages, which greatly contributes to devastatingly high rates of homelessness, addiction and suicide in Russian orphans. Some people who have lived through the hardships of these ‘homes’ have referred to them as ‘a breeding ground for gang members’ and ‘basically a death sentence’.
This is a lifestyle that I was extremely fortunate to escape, and I never let myself forget it. I promised myself that I would take full advantage of the life that I now have, and live every moment to the fullest. As I’ve grown up, there have been numerous opportunities to fulfill my promise. It has been anything as modest as enjoying a day in the park with my family or going on a zip-line obstacle course to help my little brother conquer his fear. Fulfilling my promise also includes giving back to my community through service and striving to do by best in school. These are everyday things that many people would overlook and take for granted, but not me. I know how close I was to having nothing, but now I have more than I could ever ask for, and in an attempt to ensure that this adoption is not wasted, I am determined to do my best in college, and hopefully, consequently, maintain a career and steady income in an attempt to avoid what would have been.
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Memoir Essay on What Would Have Been: My Survival Story.
(2023, September 15). Edubirdie. Retrieved April 29, 2024, from https://edubirdie.com/examples/memoir-essay-on-what-would-have-been-my-survival-story/
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