Phillip R. Moller
Instructor Anthony
English Composition
19 February 2009
Instructor Anthony
English Composition
19 February 2009
Literacy Narrative
Even as a child I grew to the point where I felt like I was traveling on a road to nowhere. Engaging myself in meaningless task in which the end would be fruitless. Consequently I became bored with schoolwork and its system of do’s and don’ts shaped by a lazily aimed process of trial and error. Still by the time I was twelve I had skipped a grade and managed to make B marks on most tests without studying. I was the child whom most teachers praised saying how great my potential was, while in the same breath remarking on my lack of drive and motivation for anything other than being a class clown. I guess somewhere along the road I had learned that of whom much is given, much is expected, so I simply cradled the fence between standout and average. I would never say so, even if asked but in the back on my mind I had given up on having high hopes.
I was nine years old when my father died. We had met that very same summer in May. It was like the answer to a boys’ prayer and I thought maybe it was going to be the beginning of something special, like a wish come true. At first it was as awkward as meeting any stranger can be, but over the weeks and months that passed we grew to love one another. He was my best friend and in retrospect he was my only friend. Knowing him allowed me to crawl out of my shell of daily introspection and overcome my need to be as unnoticeable as possible. By the end of the summer I did not want to go away. In the end I went back home and to school, but now I possessed a new attitude and if you could have heard the song in my heart you would know how I felt. Almost like the way a man carries himself after a near death experience, as if even the air is sweeter than yesterday. As if the winds have suddenly shifted and the sea is calm and you can finally put away your oars and allow the tide to take you home. Three weeks later he was gone.
I took the news as a sour medicine but oddly enough it would be months before my emotions would finally bubble over and allow me to cry. My initial reaction was that sick sinking feeling you get when plummeting down the roller coaster tracks, it was simply a bitter pill to swallow. Illness was followed by an inconsolable anger, a fury I aimed at God. In the presence of my friends and family I was corked champagne and I could no longer pray to God with humble reverence. All my life I had been taught to regard God with the utmost respect but now when I found myself alone I would engage in shouting matches with God. Battles I knew I could never win but that allowed me to unclench my tight jaw and release all of the pain I was willing to part with. I ranted and raved and asked question after question while he remained silent. In my heart I could not believe it had been greater to love and lose than to never have love at all. For a long time it seemed like nothing would ever extinguish my destructive emotions and I feared I would house the sorrow of his death forever. In my day to day activities his memory distracted me and in many ways prevented me from finding joy in things I once found very pleasing. My prayers became fewer and further in between as my thoughts about death increased. One particular night I can remember lying in bed, my eyes shut tight but sleep never came. Inside there was an emptiness that made me feel like I was always hungry and a cavity in my heart as tender as an open wound. Thoughts pulsed in my mind at a sporadic and frantic pace until I couldn’t handle it anymore. When I opened my eyes tears leaked down my cheeks into my ears and onto my pillowcase. After a few moments I sat straight up and gathered as much air into my lungs as necessary to regain some sense of control. That night I wrote a letter to my dad.
I told him how much I loved and missed him, and as the words spilled onto the page hot tears pooled in my eyes once again. Only this time I would not be distracted, not by blinding tears or the overabundant feelings of unfulfilled hopes and desires. I wrote with tenacity as if I was being kept on a timer or as if I was writing at the speed of my thoughts. I wrote as if my father would one day read my words; I never skipped a beat as my feelings flowed freely. I wrote with zeal until my eyes became heavy and I finally slipped into unconsciousness. Sometime that night I realized that I held so tightly to my hurt and pain that my heart became bitter and was poisoning me. I realized that ejecting that raw, uncensored whirlwind of emotion was like a soothing antidote. The pencil and paper was a syringe and the message I spewed was like morphine. Each word relieved the pain for but a moment, and through the night I became a junkie on the search for a fix. The next day I was surging with energy and I knew without knowing that the therapy I induced upon myself the previous night had left a stain in my attitude. Even though I still hurt deeply over the loss of my father it had become a bit less painful. Within my words I found solace and before I left for school that morning I prayed. I told my fathers I was sorry about my poor attitude and how much I loved them.
Where as before I really had no particular motivation to do well in school, now I was filled with an overwhelming need to make my father proud. Not all at once but overtime as I became more confident as a writer I started to enter into poetry contests and to share my thoughts with others openly. Within a year of my father’s death I had won my first junior amateur writing contest and I beamed with pride. Over the years my writing has evolved however the reasons why I write remain constant. It is a source of relief, a fountainhead for my ideas, a weapon for my soul, the truth in my heart, and always a letter for my dad to read.
Even as a child I grew to the point where I felt like I was traveling on a road to nowhere. Engaging myself in meaningless task in which the end would be fruitless. Consequently I became bored with schoolwork and its system of do’s and don’ts shaped by a lazily aimed process of trial and error. Still by the time I was twelve I had skipped a grade and managed to make B marks on most tests without studying. I was the child whom most teachers praised saying how great my potential was, while in the same breath remarking on my lack of drive and motivation for anything other than being a class clown. I guess somewhere along the road I had learned that of whom much is given, much is expected, so I simply cradled the fence between standout and average. I would never say so, even if asked but in the back on my mind I had given up on having high hopes.
I was nine years old when my father died. We had met that very same summer in May. It was like the answer to a boys’ prayer and I thought maybe it was going to be the beginning of something special, like a wish come true. At first it was as awkward as meeting any stranger can be, but over the weeks and months that passed we grew to love one another. He was my best friend and in retrospect he was my only friend. Knowing him allowed me to crawl out of my shell of daily introspection and overcome my need to be as unnoticeable as possible. By the end of the summer I did not want to go away. In the end I went back home and to school, but now I possessed a new attitude and if you could have heard the song in my heart you would know how I felt. Almost like the way a man carries himself after a near death experience, as if even the air is sweeter than yesterday. As if the winds have suddenly shifted and the sea is calm and you can finally put away your oars and allow the tide to take you home. Three weeks later he was gone.
I took the news as a sour medicine but oddly enough it would be months before my emotions would finally bubble over and allow me to cry. My initial reaction was that sick sinking feeling you get when plummeting down the roller coaster tracks, it was simply a bitter pill to swallow. Illness was followed by an inconsolable anger, a fury I aimed at God. In the presence of my friends and family I was corked champagne and I could no longer pray to God with humble reverence. All my life I had been taught to regard God with the utmost respect but now when I found myself alone I would engage in shouting matches with God. Battles I knew I could never win but that allowed me to unclench my tight jaw and release all of the pain I was willing to part with. I ranted and raved and asked question after question while he remained silent. In my heart I could not believe it had been greater to love and lose than to never have love at all. For a long time it seemed like nothing would ever extinguish my destructive emotions and I feared I would house the sorrow of his death forever. In my day to day activities his memory distracted me and in many ways prevented me from finding joy in things I once found very pleasing. My prayers became fewer and further in between as my thoughts about death increased. One particular night I can remember lying in bed, my eyes shut tight but sleep never came. Inside there was an emptiness that made me feel like I was always hungry and a cavity in my heart as tender as an open wound. Thoughts pulsed in my mind at a sporadic and frantic pace until I couldn’t handle it anymore. When I opened my eyes tears leaked down my cheeks into my ears and onto my pillowcase. After a few moments I sat straight up and gathered as much air into my lungs as necessary to regain some sense of control. That night I wrote a letter to my dad.
I told him how much I loved and missed him, and as the words spilled onto the page hot tears pooled in my eyes once again. Only this time I would not be distracted, not by blinding tears or the overabundant feelings of unfulfilled hopes and desires. I wrote with tenacity as if I was being kept on a timer or as if I was writing at the speed of my thoughts. I wrote as if my father would one day read my words; I never skipped a beat as my feelings flowed freely. I wrote with zeal until my eyes became heavy and I finally slipped into unconsciousness. Sometime that night I realized that I held so tightly to my hurt and pain that my heart became bitter and was poisoning me. I realized that ejecting that raw, uncensored whirlwind of emotion was like a soothing antidote. The pencil and paper was a syringe and the message I spewed was like morphine. Each word relieved the pain for but a moment, and through the night I became a junkie on the search for a fix. The next day I was surging with energy and I knew without knowing that the therapy I induced upon myself the previous night had left a stain in my attitude. Even though I still hurt deeply over the loss of my father it had become a bit less painful. Within my words I found solace and before I left for school that morning I prayed. I told my fathers I was sorry about my poor attitude and how much I loved them.
Where as before I really had no particular motivation to do well in school, now I was filled with an overwhelming need to make my father proud. Not all at once but overtime as I became more confident as a writer I started to enter into poetry contests and to share my thoughts with others openly. Within a year of my father’s death I had won my first junior amateur writing contest and I beamed with pride. Over the years my writing has evolved however the reasons why I write remain constant. It is a source of relief, a fountainhead for my ideas, a weapon for my soul, the truth in my heart, and always a letter for my dad to read.
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