On the last day of a trip to Mexico for my eighteenth birthday, my father told me to go
into a store and pick something out. There were two stores at the hotel: a souvenir shop and a
jewelry store. He meant the souvenir shop, but I misunderstood and walked into the jewelry store
instead. Inside, I found a pair of earrings I liked, but they were expensive, so I waited for my
father before deciding.
When he saw the price tag, I could tell they were more than he expected. Instead of
saying no, he suggested we go to dinner and come back later. At dinner he told me how proud he
was of me and how much he loved me. When we returned, the woman working there showed me
another pair she thought would look nice. As I kept looking, I noticed Canadian gold sapphire
earrings and instantly knew those were the ones I loved. But they were more expensive than the
first pair and the other pair combined, so I didn’t bother asking.
Even knowing that, my father bought all three.
Those sapphire earrings mean far more to me than jewelry. My parents immigrated to this
country with almost nothing. Everything they built came from sacrifice and hard work. When I
look at those earrings, I see how far my family has come and feel motivated to expand the
success my parents fought to create.