Thank you mom &amp; dad

Kakao Mischa über Dankbarkeit und Familie

Where would we be without our parents? Most likely not in this world. That alone is enough to make us grateful to our mothers and fathers for the rest of our lives. When you add to that the fact that parents do everything in their power to make their sons' dreams come true, I simply don't have the words for it.

Many of my close friends know that I am not a native German. However, very few know the story behind it. Even for me, who was there myself, it seems a little unreal. From faded childhood memories, I try to create a picture of my time in Ukraine. Of how my parents, Boris and Irina, gave up their livelihoods and left the country with me by their side.

It was a huge step, the full extent of which I only recently realized. If my parents had n't dared to take this step, I might have fallen victim to a senseless war as a soldier. Of course, no one could have predicted this, but that doesn't diminish my gratitude in the slightest.

I have vague memories of boring-looking VHS tapes. Labeled "немецкий язык" - German language. Difficult language, as I discovered. It wasn't of interest to me at the time, especially since I had enough problems with Russian. It wasn't until I suddenly found myself in a kindergarten and realized that I couldn't understand anyone that things got serious. But luckily I don't have enough memories of that for it to bother me today. I seem to have learned it somehow...

My dad Boris and I in Disneyland. Because nothing is impossible.

It is a strange feeling to grow up in a country whose culture you do not feel like you belong to. A strangeness that permeates school, work and leisure time. That gives you a reason to withdraw and stay among "your own kind". Hard to imagine for anyone who grew up where they were born and whose parents speak the same language as the teachers at school.

But it is probably precisely this strangeness that I experienced that makes me who I am today. And that allows me to look beyond the boundaries of society, in which we have to look day after day to see where we are. Such experiences are labelled as "bad" by the people who experience them and also by outsiders. As undesirable and to be avoided if possible. But it is precisely these experiences that allow us to understand what it feels like to be "foreign" and different. And only when we have experienced this for ourselves can we feel for the tens of thousands of people who live in a world every day and do not feel like they belong to it. My parents took this risk and this uncertainty, above all in order to be able to offer their children a future that they themselves did not have. For me, that is goodness in its purest form. And since I decided to give my life a risky turn, I have felt the support of my parents. Like a safety net that hangs under every idea I have, no matter how stupid. And that gives me the feeling that I can trust myself and the world. The fact that it was my parents who pushed the crowdfunding with a sum of €5,000 is a great honor for me. But in truth, that is just the tip of an iceberg that consists of support, trust and love.