A Flower Store for my Children

When our daughter became six years old, we decided to return to the United States so she could get an education in this country. When she started first grade in Portland, Oregon, she could not speak English at all.

When she came home from school one day, she said she would stop speaking Japanese. She studied hard to learn English. At the end of sixth grade, she said she wanted to go to a private junior high school because her best friend was going there. I told her that we could send her to a private junior high school, but if we did that, she might not be able to get into a good college. Then she decided to continue going to a public school. After she finished high school, she was able to get into a good college.

When I was working at a flower store, I could make any kind of flower arrangement. But I was earning minimum wage. (Minimum wage in 1983 was $3.35 an hour.) If I continued working at a flower store, I could not save much money. One day my husband told me to drive to a neighboring town where many wealthy people lived. Then we saw a “space for rent” sign in a small shopping center. I decided to open a flower store there.

I took care of the store by myself. Gradually, I gained more customers. During the first holiday season, I had to work all night. I took a nap on the floor. In the early morning, I went home to change my clothes, and then I went to the wholesale market to buy flowers. My son told my husband, “I want to see my mother,” but I was always too busy at my store.
After the first Thanksgiving, a lady came to my store and asked for a job. I was happy to hire her. My store grew busier, and after several years, I moved to a bigger space. I could save money for my two children’s education. Both of them were able to go to a good college.

When I began my store, I only thought about making money. But I found out that I could both save money and enjoy my work because I love flowers and could be around them all the time. This experience taught me that hard work, perseverance, and following your passion can lead to both personal fulfillment and a better future for your children.

Kumiko Jones

A Girl’s Game Turned into an Adult Goal

What have you dreamed to be since you were a child? Somethings, which we have wished to become since our childhood, generally become in our motivation while we are growing up. This happened to me. Everything started like a dolls’ play, but day by day, that play became in a gift which gave light to my existence. In other words, my childhood’s play has become in a wonderful reality for the rest of my life.

My parents told me that since I was a child, I have loved to help others. For example, they say that I always played with my favorite doll, Patty. In the dolls’ play, she always helped other dolls, so Patty was a doctor or a psychologist. Years later, my younger brother suffered encephalitis; due to this, he lost his speech and movement in the upper and lower extremities of his body. Then, he needed a neuropsychologist to do therapy and try to regain his body movements. For that reason, every week a neuropsychologist went to my house to help my brother, and I was always there observing everything that the neuropsychologist did with my brother. His therapy lasted for years, and during that time, she had been asking me if I wanted to learn somethings to help my brother with his therapy, and finally, I responded to her “yes, I want.” Since that day, I stopped to help my dolls, and I started to help my brother like my favorite toy.

I continued growing up, and during those years, my dream had been becoming more and more clear. That clarity helped me to be aware of my love for psychology; immediately, I started to do different things to achieve my goal which was to become A PSYCHOLOGIST. First, I stared to study with my best high school’s friend about psychology and general topics to pass the public university test, but I did not pass the public university test. I remember that for that semester, the university only had twenty seats for psychology students, and I got ranked twenty-five. That was a bad moment for me because my family did not have enough money to pay for my psychology career at a private university. After that, I started to work in a shoe store because I wanted to save money for my first semester at a private university. By the time I had two years working in that shoe store, I had saved enough money to pay for the admission Test, the first semester, and books. That was the moment to start the way to achieving my goal. When I just had finished my first semester, I knew that my grades had been one of the best in the school of psychology, and this kept happening semester by semester. As a result of this, I got a full scholarship for all my psychology career.

Five years later, I achieved my goal: I graduated as a psychologist, after that, I started to work in a foundation with children with special needs. Really, I had been dreaming with a work like that during all my career. Since then, I have been falling in love more and more with child psychology. Sadly, I have not been working with children for two years because this is the time that I have been living in the United States, and I have not validated my degree in this country yet. Nevertheless, for one year and half, I have been studying English and preparing myself to take my psychology classes, validate my degree, and of course be a wonderful child psychologist in this country.

In conclusion, if we have put attention to our inner child’s dreams, it surely has a connection with our present. In short words, our inner child has been guiding our life’s path.