The sun cast the morning sky with bright shades of blue, orange, red, and purple. I laid back on the grass and thought about my life and the past few days of the Revolutionary War. I thought about how my father had convinced our tribe, the Kanienkehaka (early settlers called us the Mohawks), the Senecas, Onondagas, and Cayugas to join the side of England while the other Iroquois tribes joined the Patriots. I also thought about how much I missed my mother who had died the year before due to a European disease. My mother was always the kind one, and my father was always the strict, powerful, and arrogant one.
“Kateri!” The cry of my father disrupted my thoughts as I picked myself off the grass. I ran down the hill, with the soft grass tickling my feet, to the border of our village. As I bent over to put on my moccasins, I felt a shadow looming over me, it was my father.
“Hurry daughter,” boomed my father. “There is clothing to make, gardens to tend, food to collect, and meals to cook!”
I grabbed a straw-woven basket and scampered over to the fields to weed the crops. As I approached the field, I admired how nice the Three Sister crops were growing. The bean plant grew around the cornstalk, and the squash grew around the corn and the beans. The three plants really lived up to their name, they were just like three sisters that were always in harmony.
As my basket grew more full and more full with weeds, I thought about last year, when many of our people became ill, nobody had wanted to take care of them. My mother had volunteered to take care of them and she had caught the disease. She had had a really bad cold that nobody could cure, and she died a few weeks later. If only my father had not let my mother take care of the sick, if ...
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...now, but there is no way to change what I chose in the past.”
I was surprised, my father who never showed feelings of any discomfort was suddenly so caring and thoughtful? I’ve always wondered why my mother had married this man, and I realized that maybe my father wasn’t the tough, strong guy he had always seemed to be.
“Kateri,” continued my father. “If this makes you feel any better, I think of your mother a lot too. When I feel like I really need her, I look up into the sky and I can feel her smiling down at me. If I’ve learned anything over the past year, it is that love is stronger than death.”
I looked up at the starry night sky, with all those little eyes twinkling at me and I thought that I could see the outline of my mother winking at me.
“Let’s go,” I finally said standing up.
“Go where?” asked my father.
“On a journey to a new life,” I replied.
“Join, or Die.” “Don’t Tread on Me.” These are two mottos often used by Revolutionary supporters and fighters from about 1754 to 1783, and even sometimes today it is still used. These were battle cries that patriotic men would scream with all their might before charging onto the battlefield, where they might take their last breath. Nearly five thousand men gave their lives, for freedom’s sake. Their sacrifices were not done in vain, as the war was ended on September 3rd, 1783. This sense of victory and accomplishment is what lead these new Americans to further establishing their country, making their mark on history, and creating a new identity for themselves, as free men and woman.
I looked around at everyone in the room and saw the sorrow in their eyes. My eyes first fell on my grandmother, usually the beacon of strength in our family. My grandmother looked as if she had been crying for a very long period of time. Her face looked more wrinkled than before underneath the wild, white hair atop her head. The face of this once youthful person now looked like a grape that had been dried in the sun to become a raisin. Her hair looked like it had not been brushed since the previous day as if created from high wispy clouds on a bright sunny day.
The author begins the second chapter by recalling his father’s appearance. He describes his father as a “really fine looking man”. Continuing, he explains how his father “dressed carefully” so much that he even “put an open white handkerchief in his breast pocket”. Though in these descriptions he appears to have a positive, respectful attitude toward his father, he proceeds to mention numerous ways in the contrary. In one of the following paragraphs he makes the statement, “Nothing could ever persuade Father that he was anything but a naturally home-loving body – which, indeed, for a great part of the time, he was”. By saying this the author recognizes that his father thinks of
The grass was wet and cold. I woke up and Mother was at her new job working for the Barclays Bank and I walked out of my room which was red walls with white carpet. I went down the stairs and walked outside and the grass was wet it had rained that night and I didn’t notice I must've slept through it. It was 10 degrees outside and it made the grass cold and wet. I enjoyed this very much. I laid down and watched the sunset fade away and I felt good laying in the grass. I eventually had to get up and Mother came home for lunch and I had a strawberry milkshake and two clementines. I noticed that Mother was not talking very much and then I saw tears form in her eyes.
Now, the images and thoughts of bloody battlefields and men in red coats and blue coats fighting are common for a person to have when they hear the words, “the American Revolution.” In fact, if you were
I sat alone reading by the dim light of the last candle that I found in Mommas nightstand. Momma made such beautiful candles, dipping each wick lovingly into the hot wax over and over until the candles took form. Before gently hanging them up to dry she would take a knife and carve a word on each one. Through the years, I had seen the words hope, love, giving, along with a multitude of others. I took the candle down from stand and this one had one word cut delicately in its side...remember.
Tears flooded my face as I let her hand go. I love my mother dearly, but without father I had to be the head of the house. The one to take charge in times like these. She was in not in a good place of mind to be rational. Why had father forsaken us like this, why couldn't we just go home and be with him. The thoughts swirled around my head but the next thing I knew was mother laying on the ground in pain. Her face crinkled and puffy as she clenched her stomach in the delicate hands.
My father’s energy was of an entirely different nature. He was quick, strong, and lean, with sloping shoulders and a narrow waist. He had a certain grace of movement that made me feel secure, even pleasurable. Sometimes he’d visit after coming off work at the Brillo Soap Pad factory where he was employed as a machinist, and he seemed to be revved up enough to do a second shift. The way he talke...
It was a village on a hill, all joyous and fun where there was a meadow full of blossomed flowers. The folks there walked with humble smiles and greeted everyone they passed. The smell of baked bread and ginger took over the market. At the playing grounds the children ran around, flipped and did tricks. Mama would sing and Alice would hum. Papa went to work but was always home just in time to grab John for dinner. But Alice’s friend by the port soon fell ill, almost like weeds of a garden that takes over, all around her went unwell. Grave yards soon became over populated and overwhelmed with corpse.
In the poem “My Old Man” by Charles Bukowski, I got the message that his father wasn’t there for him emotionally. We learn very quickly, Bukowski
The poem His stillness by Sharon Olds gave her a definite understanding of the man that she called “father.” Olds grew up in an abusive family home because her dad was always known as an alcoholic. Because of her dad’s habit, created hard living environments for her and she wished that her parents never got married. Whenever liquor was in her dad’s system, he was unemotional making life for Olds hard. She never described the things that he did to her. The visit to the doctor’s office made her opened up to her dad. She saw her dad as lovely and caring family man and she never imagine him being the man that he was at the doctor’s office. He did not overreacted when he heard news; instead he was calm and accepted the news. She felt tremendously sad for her dad and from there now she started noticing the man she never knew. Olds and her dad bond grew stronger at the doctor’s office. The man she had always known for his abusive behavior turned out the most caring man in the world.
Days past and nothing from dad and Jack not getting better. I get extremely tired and sick. After many hours, there is a knock on the door and I realize that dad came home. I jumped up in joy and hugged him. He looked a lot better. “Hello. I missed you guys so much!!” dad says.
I knew I didn 't have mother but little mind always felt the scarcity of mother love. I kept on watching my nephew and ices while my sister- in law wrapped them around by her arms, changed their clothes and make them laugh. I was bit older than them and used to be away from them looking and gazing on them and feeling the love of mother. My clothiers were ragged on the right arms. I used to change myself. I hardly remember my age I should be the age of seven years.
You had to, I told myself, you had to. A hand slid across my back and landed on my shoulder causing me to flinch. His obnoxious voice boomed loudly into my ear, “She’s going to be fine. Don't act like your mother,” I stiffen. My father’s demeanor alone was dauntless and menacing, but here I sat conceited, narcissistic, big-headed, yet cowardly. There was something about the way he spoke that tugged at my heart, but it also made me feel whole. “Don’t get sympathetic now. You’re past that, remember? You’re the
As I walked in to their bedroom, I found my mother sitting on the bed, weeping quietly, while my father lay on the bed in a near unconscious state. This sight shocked me, I had seen my father sick before, but by the reaction of my mother and the deathly look on my father’s face I knew that something was seriously wrong.