The Green Book

Today I saw that book after many years.

The green book my father insisted on making me hear and read all English lessons. I began to see the book in a hard green cover at age 10 after taking a very low grade in English. Yes English, the language my father wanted so much for me to learn!

But I learned. I have read so many times that I know by heart, even today, all the chapters

I have often been angry with the green cover book:

He stole me from jokes and merry moments on the sidewalk of Admiral Barroso Street and sometimes prevented me from watching favorite shows. My dad was always there with the green book coming home from work.

It was a kind of ritual, as soon as he arrived home would take my mother to work in a school where she taught, then would took a shower, had soup and take the book and me and him, together, would listen and then read.

When I was already in bed to sleep, my father used to ask me to put headphones with recordings of the book's class so I could continue to listen even after falling asleep. After a few minutes, I think, he would turn the recorder off.

No wonder I know all the lessons by heart. Nor is it any wonder that I have had facility of speaking the language. At 13 I decided to teach the neighborhood students

*Free English Classes*, I placed proudly on the board outside our house. I made the garage our classroom that had good attendance.

At 14 my father hired an American teacher along with two other co-workers and took me to these classes together. At night when we did not have the english classes, we used to listen to the audios of the green book.

At 15 I tried to go to the United States, I wanted to go as na Exchange student but my parents did not allow it, they were afraid to send me and I was frustrated here. After all, I thought, all the study in the Green Book would worth nothing.

At 16 I met an American sister who came to Brazil and from whom I became inseparable. I loved talking to her in English and practice with her what I had learned in the book

But in a short time she just wanted to speak Portuguese. After all, she was in Brazil and wanted to learn the portuguese.

To earn some money here she started teaching in an English course and gave private lessons. Before long she had so many students that she gave me some students to teach.

After she returned to the US I was sure that I would live there.

I made the selection and began to teach in an English course in order to save Money for the trip so dreamed up. I saved money, got married, and traveled through the United States for almost two months, I went from north to south and from east to west. But it was not enough. I wanted to live and experience what I read in the green book.

I graduated in economics and after the master's degree I decided, stimulated once again by my father, that I should do my doctorate in the United States. I tried Stanford to stay close to my American sister but I got Illinois that I had been suggested by friends. I spent four long years with husband and children in the State of Illinois.

And there I received, at least three times, the visit of my parents. I came back with my Ph.D. degree in hands. I always thought winning a challenge meant victory. It is not! Victory has a multidimensional sense.

In some dimensions I won but in others, the ones that really matter, I lost.

That's why the Green Book is very important. He led me to conquer what I wanted and this conquest made my children know more than its content. But most importantly, the green book reminds me of lessons that have been forever tattooed on my soul and my heart, it brings me back to a time when the book of my life, green in hope, was only on the front pages.

The pages flowed. I met, loves, romances, dramas and tragedies.

Everything stayed in me and I take with me, in my thoughts, wherever I go.

Always with hope. The hope in miracles like the one I was granted today.

Thanks to the God of the impossible!