Eight months ago, you were a stranger. We had read bio after bio and after reading yours, we felt you would be the perfect addition to our family. You were a student we had only emailed, but at that moment, you were now a girl we were meeting at the airport. You spent the year living and growing in our home that was thousands of miles away from yours. You left your family, your friends, your school and your country for a year to experience American life. As we prepare to drop you back off at the same airport where we met eight months earlier for your journey back home, we hope you remember this year of your life.
Remember your high school. Remember the Friday nights under the lights at Memorial Stadium and the friends that were made there. Remember the sports you participated in, whether it was cheering for the Big Reds football team, lifting things up and putting them down on the powerlifting team or learning how to play the sport of softball. Remember the wins and remember the losses. Remember the late nights you spent at homecoming and prom. Remember walking across the stage at graduation representing your country.
Remember your town. Remember your coffee dates at "The Raven" with the other foreign exchange students. Remember all the times we had to go to "Casey's" because they have "the best pizza in town." Remember the times we told mom you were "sad" and needed ice cream, so we went to "Jimmy's." Remember the church because it gave you more than one set of "host" parents. Remember the culture shock you experienced, the slang terms you had never heard of and the things that made you go "what?" Remember the things you did here that you can't do at home.
Remember your friends. Your band friends that taught you how to play an instrument and march on a football field at the same time. Your teammates that were there with you for the wins and the losses. Your classmates that became study buddies and the people you asked for help when you weren't 100 percent sure what the teachers said. Your church friends that always laughed with you and became another American family. Your exchange student friends that experienced all the weird and different things of America with you.
Remember us. The strangers that picked you up at the airport that became Mom, Dad, sister and brothers. The people that still had fun at the football game you cheered at even though it was pouring rain. The shoulders you cried on and the people you laughed with. The people that you probably said several times, "I don't know them" about. We may be embarrassing, but you are stuck with us.
As you prepare to end this year, take all the photos and memories that you made this year and always remember them. Your exchange year is a year of your life, or is it life in a year? Who really knows? Go and continue to live life to the fullest and remember your American experience.
