Coming to another country can be really exciting but a little awkward. There is new culture, a new language, new people, but I didn’t think of that when I got on my flight from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to New York, United States with my mother. All my mother and I could think of was how much fun we were going to have.

Starting in a new country was hard in the beginning for my mother and me since we didn’t speak English. But my brother had been living here for three years already, and he helped us, and it was good to have our family living together again.

In just two months, I was in school and my mother was working. School was sometimes challenging because people are different here. There are students from all around the world, and having to speak English all day long was hard for me at the time. It was a good awkward, though.

My new life was going great until my first week of school, on September 17, when I was 14 years old. That day I took the city bus to go home after school. Then, when I was crossing the street to my house, everything went black.

I woke up almost a week later. Only later did I learn what had happened to me. There had been a car accident. I had broken bones and had head trauma.

People that I hadn’t even met from school had prayed for me. My family both from Brazil and in the U.S. prayed for me, too. That was what my family told me when I got better. All of sudden, I woke up. All I remember is me looking for my phone, unlocking it and texting random people. I could move my hands, but I couldn’t speak or move my body for almost a week. I needed to learn how to live life again. Everyone was and is still surprised at how I woke up suddenly and like nothing had happened. Of course, I had to recuperate from my injuries, but waking up from a coma was already something unexpected.

In the hospital, instead of in school, I learned English. Most of my family didn’t speak English, and I had to learn to speak with the doctors. In the end of November, two months after the accident, I started going to rehab. A week later I went home.

I was told I was good for someone who had been in a in coma. I got to see some of my friends from school, but it was weird for them, because I was acting like a little kid. On December 7th, I went back to school. I started meeting new people, but studying was much harder since my memory was not as good as it had been. But slowly things got better.

Now, after three years, I can say that I am a survivor. Nowadays my memory and behavior have gotten better.

People say that I’m a miracle, and I believe them. I grew up in a Catholic family. I used to go to church everyday and on Saturday with my grandparents. But in 2009 when my grandfather died I stopped going to the Catholic Church and stopped believing in God. I did still go to other churches in Brazil but never the Catholic one. It felt weird for me to go without my grandfather.

After the accident, my religious beliefs have changed. After what has happened to me, I believe that if it was not for God, I would have died. I’m here today because of him, alive and healthy. Now I believe in him, and now I feel comfortable going back to the church.

© Giulia. All rights reserved. If you are interested in quoting this story, contact the national team and we can put you in touch with the author’s teacher.