“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
“For you, a thousand times over.”
It is a quote from The Kite Runner, a book my parents and I read when I was in high school. A quote that they engraved on a bracelet when I graduated. These six words hold a promise of loyalty, commitment, and sacrifice – whatever it takes for them to make my dreams come true.
I come from a line of people who sacrificed to give me a life better than their own – grandparents who battled racism, poverty, and being an immigrant in the United States; parents who worked around the clock to provide for me and my sisters and never asked for anything in return.
I will carry on this legacy. I will use my privilege to create opportunity for the next generations of my family. I will ensure that they can access the excellent education that my family allowed me to attain. I will teach them to live and breathe our family history, ensuring that my grandparents and parents do not fade from memory, that their selflessness is intergenerational so together we can make an enduring difference in the world.
To my future children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren: “For you, a thousand times over.”
— Haley Brown