My story - why i need to study

Love and affection are a necessity of life and as human beings, we cannot survive without these emotions. Every individual wish to be surrounded by his loved ones be it family, friends or colleagues. I grew up in Vietnam where the traditional Asian family structure prevailed. Families stuck together and were supporting figures during the process of growing up. This was not true in my case as I had to stay away from my family. There was a period in my life when I felt as being unwanted and not loved and this was truly a period of struggle for me.
Often, we do not realize the sacrifices that our loved ones make for us and our mind just focuses on the negative aspects of it. I admit to having been through the same feelings where I focused more on the absence of my parents in my life. I used to think that they did not love me and that I was just an unwanted burden on their lives. When I used to look at the people around me and how children were happy with their parents, I felt awful from the inside. There was a void which my parents did not fill and the emptiness grew stronger with time. I resented being born many times. Whenever I came across families that were complete and children who were with their parents, not only did I feel sad but I used to get jealous of them. I used to wonder a lot as to why I could not bond on such a level with my parents. The lack of influential figures in my life actually inflicted an empty wound.
One day, I stumbled on the photographs of my parents when they were young. The photographs looked old but I could not help smiling at them because these photographs showed some of the happiest moments of my life. The photographs were of me and my parents in which I was very young, but I realized so were they. The youthfulness that my mother and father cherished had faded away by now and I realized the impact of time on them. At that very moment, something in me clicked and I concluded that I could not blame my parents for not being there for me. Love does not always require the physical presence of individuals but it is rather the linking of the souls. My parents got married after high school and they could not go to college. They had to work very hard to gain the position that they now have. Even though my parents were never physically there for me, but they tried to give me the best support and prepare me for a wonderful life ahead. My parents loved me and it was because of this, that they did not want me to struggle like them to make ends meet. Love does not need to be proved every time and there are other ways of expressing love as well.