Driving with my dad those countless hours gave me plenty of time to say goodbye, but I just couldn’t form the words. So instead when pestered each other with our normal banter, annoying each other with pun filled jokes that incited a groan instead of a laugh. My dad filled the time with stories, telling me about his childhood, his father, and grandfather who I never had the pleasure to meet. At that time, though I never actually said goodbye or how much I’d miss him, this was in a way our way of saying it without actually speaking. Yes, we’d see each other again, but they’d be spread thin, mostly in the summer months when school was out, but I was used to making him breakfast in the mornings as we each got ready, him for work and me for school. I was used to greeting him when he came in the door with a witty comment and a hello that would cause him to roll his eyes. I was used to helping him making dinner and listening to him purposely butchering the lyrics to my favorite songs. These things were a part of my everyday life and when we reached our destination they no longer would be. We reached Texas and our hotel in the middle of the night and nobody had the energy to say or do anything but climb in bed and sleep. Tomorrow would be the day we saw my father new abode, tomorrow would be the day which we would move him into a new home inhibited only by him.
The morning was a blur of packing up the little we’d unpacked, eating breakfast, and climbing back into the cars we’d become so accustomed to and heading off to a new chapter of life. The apartments which my father had chosen were nothing special, but my dad stated, “As long as I have a roof over my head, walls, and a bed. I’ll be fine.” He was a simple man and the apartment fit...
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... we headed home.
It wasn’t until we’d been on the road for some time and I finally saw a sign that had Saint Louis on it and the number of miles left did the situation finally hit me. Like a dam opening tears flooded out of my eyes and I quietly cried. The closer we came to home meant the farther we were from my father. My mom and sister said nothing feeling the same pain as my body shook and tears streamed down my face. In a way the pain was worse than when my father had been deployed because then he was so far away that it was not even fathomable for me to see him until he came home. Now he was close, but also far away, he was in the same country as us this time but we weren’t together. I cried until I had no more tears and when we finally enter Saint Louis the image of the Arch did not bring its usual sense of happiness and home but just another pang of sadness.
My mind started to wonder though each room of the house, the kitchen where mom used to spend every waking hour in. The music room where dad maintained the instrument so carefully like one day people would come and play them, but that day never came, the house was always painfully empty. The house never quite lived to be the house my parents wanted, dust bunnies always danced across the floor, shelves were always slightly crooked even when you fixed them. My parents were from high class families that always had some party to host. Their children were disappointments, for we
The air was warm, the beams of sunlight shined on my skin, and the sweet laughter of my daughter came as she ran about. I could hear the bark of the neighbor’s dog in the distance, the scraping sound of a jogger's sneakers on the gravel sidewalk and I could smell the sweet aroma of the ripening peaches coming from the tree in our backyard. It was a brilliant summer day just like any other. My husband, Matthew, pulled in. Our daughter ran to him as he walked up the drive, “Daddy, Daddy,” she shouted as she wrapped her arms around him, embracing him with love. My husband sat beside me and began to speak. My heart began to beat slowly and erratically at first, my eyes began to burn in their sockets and a lump rose in my throat. The hair on my arms stood on end as my eyes began to fill with tears. “I got orders babe, I’m going to be shipped out in eight days.” These words my husband spoke would be the begging of a whole new life, a whole new fear. This day my life changed forever. On this day I learned my husband was going to be deployed.
In December 2002, my dad’s boss called telling him, he was to be deployed in January 2003. Being 5 years of age I didn't quite understand what he would endure, all I knew is my daddy was leaving us for 7 months. The morning of my dad's departure came quickly. I'll never forget the goodbye that changed my outlook on family and love. At 5 am my father walked into my room. Scared and nervous, he was crying… I had never
The day I moved away, a lot of things were going through my young mind. As I took my last look at my home, I remembered all the fun times I had with my family and friends through out my life. Now I was moving 800 miles away from all of that with no insight on what lied ahead for me. As my family and I drove away from our Michigan home, I looked out the window wondering what Virginia would be, and what my friends were doing. A lot of things were going through my mind at the time. At the time my main worry was if I would make any friends, and how I would adjust to everything. During the whole drive down, my mother would often let me know that everything would be all right and I would like it. Trying to be strong and hold back my tears, I just shook my head no, wondering why we had to move so far away. Life would be different for me and I knew it would.
Within a week of finding out my dad was gone forever, me along with my eight brothers and sisters, my recently widowed ( and pregnant ) mom, and a handful of personal items left the comfort of our small Charleston, home and were packed up in a van and shipped off to Memphis, Tennessee to start a new life. The wound of my father's death was still so raw that I refused to accept that the strange city of Memphis was my new home, and that somehow my father was alive and well, and all we needed to do was go back to Charleston and be with him. And as days in Memphis turned to weeks ,and then months, the realization and acceptance of my new life set in, and I began to embrace Memphis as my new home. as the years passed I made
The ride home had been the most excruciating car ride of my life. Grasping this all new information, coping with grief and guilt had been extremely grueling. As my stepfather brought my sister and I home, nothing was to be said, no words were leaving my mouth.Our different home, we all limped our ways to our beds, and cried ourselves to sleep with nothing but silence remaining. Death had surprised me once
As I drive to Edgewood the first thing that catches my eye is how the fields are just filled with corn and that's all you see for miles. The drive their helps you just clear your head and the country music is playing and you just look around and see how peaceful it is. When you get to the town it's very small a population of about 800. Not many people live there compared to Dubuque. It is the type of place where everyone knows everyone. When you first pull in to Edgewood you notice how old and antique everything looks and the if you have never been there before you will notice how the town just smells like farm. We keep driving through the town and you just keep seeing lots of corn. Then you go a couple miles down the road and you have finally
One Sunday morning, early, I’d say around 5:00am or so I was laying in my bed sound asleep in my nice, cold, dark room all snuggled up in my blankets and about 8 pillows surrounding me. I was woken up by my mom and with a voice so soft but with a hint of excitement she says, “Sarah time to wake up, we have to be at the airport in an hour”. I moaned and groaned because I stayed awake most of the night just so excited about what the day had in store for me replaying situations in my head over and over again! Soon enough me and my mom are in her car driving to Kansas City to get on a plane to West Palm Beach, Florida. Our car is packed to the celling of all our bags filled with clothes, shoes, blankets, some kitchen ware, bathroom stuff and other essentials and that’s when it hit me, wow I’m leaving Kansas City. Or more like I’m leaving all my friends, family, my dog, and the house I grew up in for most my life. I took my last looks of Missouri and with every emotion running threw me I didn’t know if I was exited or scared or both to be moving to a different state!
My last day seemed to arrive in the blink of an eye. My “Last Day in Palm Springs”. I couldn’t really spend the day doing what I wanted. There was no time for nostalgia or goodbyes. I spent all my time moving the boxes to the moving truck. One at a time, I stripped my childhood home of everything that made it my childhood home. You never realize how few your belongings are until you pack it all up. Finally, we were off. Driving on the highway all day long and through the dat is such a romanticized concept, but the actual reality of it is very different. There I was, stuck with my whole family in a car that was far too small for a family of four. The trip was supposed to take only 8 hours but we ended up driving for around 11 unbearable hours. I was asleep for the last leg of the trip but I was awoken from my uncomfortable slumber by my family’s voices. There was a crick in my neck, my arms had red marks from the seatbelt, and I felt like I was going to collapse if anything even touched me. I forgot all about that, though, when I looked out the window. The sun was just starting to emerge from the horizon, bathing the whole place in a golden glow. The air wafting through my window was a far contrast from the dry heat in Palm Springs. It was a serene environment that made me forget about everything. The next thing I knew, we had arrived at my aunt’s home. There was actual one good thing
In the morning my father was there to drive us to school. I didn’t ask about the argument that I had heard the night before. I just figured somethings were better left alone. I could tell by my father’s face that he was upset. In all my fourteen years I had never seen him this upset accept for the night that my grandfather died.
On a typical hot day, the twenty-eight of August was the first day of the fall 2016 semester. I was excited to attend my English Composition I and meet my instructor. I was able to write an essay without any struggle as I learned before in the English language Institute of Akron university. However, writing an academic essay needs a lot of practice, knowledge and that what I needed in order to improve my writing skills. As an ELI student I was able to write a formal essay with fundamental requirements but without sense of creativity. I started to learn new ways of writing essays, used my imagination and developed creative new methods to attract the reader 's attention. There are many aspects to write college level essays that I was not aware
As we pulled out of my parents driveway, the circumstances seemed very surreal. My entire way of life had been turned upside down with only a few hours consideration. I was very much “at sea” in the ...
I wearily drag myself away from the silken violet comforter and slump out into the living room. The green and red print of our family’s southwestern style couch streaks boldly against the deep blues of the opposing sitting chairs, calling me to it. Of course I oblige the billowy haven, roughly plopping down and curling into the cushions, ignoring the faint smell of smoke that clings to the fabric. My focus fades in and out for a while, allowing my mind to relax and unwind from any treacherous dreams of the pervious night, until I hear the telltale creak of door hinges. My eyes flutter lightly open to see my Father dressed in smart brown slacks and a deep earthy t-shirt, his graying hair and beard neatly comber into order. He places his appointment book and hair products in a bag near the door signaling the rapid approaching time of departure. Soon he is parading out the door with ever-fading whispers of ‘I love you kid,’ and ‘be good.’
There are many different types of writing styles that are used in everyday literature; in books and magazine articles, scholarly and academic journals. According to Essentials of College Writing, by C. M. Connell & K. Sole (2013), descriptive writing is “defined by painting pictures with words” (chapter 6.4, line 1), while narrative writing is described as “storytelling from the point of view of the narrator” (chapter 6.3, line 1). Narrative writing is more appealing considering the reader is drawn into the worlds created by the storyteller; since narrative writing has a plot descriptive writing has no time elements or chronological order to the writing.
One thing that is very important in all forms of writing – not just poetry – is the description. When writing, an author should describe the setting and the characters thoroughly, in a way that resounds in the reader. All descriptions are written in hopes of putting an image into your head, and especially as sophomores, I believe that we are still learning how to write descriptions. Descriptions are not as easy as everyone thinks of them as – not a good description, anyway. I’ve read many descriptive sentences from peer grading essays and my trudge through numerous novels and short stories, and rarely do I find that descriptions really put an image into my head. Not to discourage the way teachers teach descriptive writing as I understand that if it’s difficult to so much as write a description, it should be very difficult to teach it.