06/30/2023
Bravery – can you even imagine, at 16 years old, crossing the ocean to live with strangers in a new culture, a different time zone, and speaking a foreign language; knowing no one at all? Let me tell you a story about a brave, passionate, loving, vulnerable kid who, like all the others, just needed some love, guidance, and support to keep him going.
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Julio Alegria and I had the honor, truly an honor, to host Ulysse, a 16-year-old foreign exchange student from Marseille, France, for the past 10 months - the best decision of our lives. Ulysse knew the United States from one previous trip, during which he fell in love with it and wanted to experience daily life in our schools – the big “American high schools” people from all over the world see in movies, with sports and activities we take for granted. Ulysse wanted to learn more about our cultures and lifestyle, especially playing high school sports. Ulysse is proud of France, and he wanted to share his French cultures with us; just one of the differences, they don’t have high school sports in France.
Julio and I do not have children of our own. Parenting was brand new for us. Scared? Maybe a little, but honestly, we just wanted to love and help a kid with a big imagination and dreams of living in the United States. Just loving him carried us through the up’s and down’s of learning to parent. We grew with Ulysse, as he learned to adapt to a new home and daily life, in our ability to support and protect him, and let me tell you, we would do anything for this kid today. He is the best! He is caring, loving, sensitive, smart, street smart, passionate, wildly athletic, hilarious, and more. We have a French son for life now, and he has 2 American dads (well, one who is Mexican-American).
Ulysse returned to France on Father’s Day (unfortunately), but we jam-packed his final 2 weeks with memories: Hershey Park (twice); Mexico (where Julio’s mother has hosted her own Japanese exchange student the past year); fun flying; a behind-the-scenes trip with Rep. Maureen Madden to the Pennsylvania Capitol, where Ulysse got to see democracy in action – standing strong for survivors of child abuse; walking 13 miles in one day in Boston and Cambridge; contemplating from the beaches of Cape Cod (JFK-esque) his return a stone's throw across that water to France in a few days; an exhilarating first baseball game and a Yankees 6-5 win at the Subway Series in Queens; a final high school "soccer" game and farewell to Coach Tuck; one last basketball dunk, dinner, and a Starbuck’s Pink Drink before hitting the road to the airport; a hilarious Tom-the-Troll bedtime story with Julio!
That was our Restless Farewell, but Ulysse is already playing AMERICAN football back in Marseille – quarterbacking yesterday with a 20-yard TD pass to his WR. (He couldn’t even throw a football when we first started playing in our yard.) Ulysse knows he can come back and stay with us any time he wants, wherever we are; in fact, he already has tickets to come with his mom for 2 weeks at Christmas and New Year’s. We can’t wait!
Until Monday, Ulysse!
We need explorers like these in our world!
**PLEASE** think about hosting a boy or girl (or two) this year!
ASSE - Mirella Romualdi - the BEST (in my opinion)!
