Personal Essay: The Story Of My Father's Life

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Growing up should be one of the things that you want to remember forever. Your mind is supposed to be full of memories that you’ll cherish and tell again and again to your children and grandchildren until they’ve heard the story and can re-peat it verbatim. Or at least, that’s what people say it should be like. My mother did this quite well. She was so in love with my father that everyone knew the story of how they met. Friends, Relatives, even our elder next door neighbor, Mrs. Parker, knew the story. Not because it had a fairytale ending, but because it made my mother happy telling the story of a love that once was. My Dad was the stereotypical 90’s jock. He was the bad boy with dark long hair that flowed down to his shoulders, he would …show more content…

What my mother didn’t know was that there were two sides to the love of her life and almost 20 years after being married, she finally met him. My father grew up in an alcoholic household. His father was an alcoholic and he was regularly abused both emotionally and physically. He knew more than anyone how damaging this “disease” was to not only himself but to others around him. When he married my mom at the young and tender age of 18 years old, he vowed to never turn over to the temptation and cause others the pain that he experienced. Sadly, he didn’t win that battle and I lost my father to …show more content…

I locked my younger siblings in the bathroom upstairs and I start making my way down the steps being careful where I place my foot, because the steps were known to creak. I clung onto the railing until my knuckles were white and I peered around the corner to see Jonathan holding my Father back as he was lunging for my Mother.
She stared at him contemplating and somehow I knew exactly what she was going to say.
“I want a divorce.”
My Dad stopped struggling in my brother’s arms and he seemed to sober up a bit and asked “What?”
My Mom nods as if trying to convince herself that this was what she wanted and she nodded with tears in her eyes “I want a divorce Carlos.”
Not only did she say this with confidence, but she said it knowing that he was never going to change. He was drowning and she finally realized she couldn’t throw him a float. She believed that divorce not only caused problems for them, but for us too. We were hurting just as he once was.
By my senior year in high school my relationship with my Father had completely fallen apart. Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness or I can choose to forgive and move on with my life. Whether he’s in it or

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