Memoir: Final Stretch

Memoirs Due END OF CLASS Tomorrow. Rubric is HERE

Grading Conference Dates

Student Sample: This is an EXAMPLE of an EXEMPLARY memoir. Why? How does yours compare? Comments appreciated - Well done Carolina

My family calls itself the United Nations. I was born in Mexico, but I don’t feel Mexican at all. Ironically, it’s the place I least identify with. My brother was born in the United States; he doesn’t even remember living there. My mother is from Cartagena, Colombia and my father is from Medellin. We have never stopped moving. Every day I am filled with comments of sympathy,  “Moving must be so hard for you!” “All that change must be exhausting…” I simply say that they are right because the answer is too complicated for others to understand. I speak for myself when I say that moving is normal. After all, I don’t know any better.

I am lucky in the sense that I have always kept a close relationship with my immediate and extended family, even though our lives are black and white, completely opposite. I go to Cartagena, Colombia every year for Christmas where we all share a wonderful time together. We never admit it, but we are all conformed with our routines. None of us really enjoys change. When the time comes, some people try to ignore it, but as we all know change can’t be ignored.

One September afternoon, I got back from school in a jolly mood, ready to tell my mom everything about my day. I opened the door and walked around the house,

“Mom, I am home” I announced, “Where are you?”

“Give me a second.” A muffled voice came out of the bathroom.

I was completely oblivious to the tone of my mother's voice. I  ate a snack and did my homework. After ten minutes or so I knew something was wrong. My mom was always ready to embrace and talk to me as soon as I came home. I went down the stairs and peered into the bathroom. The lights were off and there was no one there. I thought I heard my mom’s voice come from over here. I think. I pace around the first floor of my house. We had just moved from Bogota, Colombia to Santiago, Chile. I went to the backyard calmly just to find my mother weeping on the phone.

   “I tried to believe that I didn’t see it coming,” she bawled, “But we all knew this was going to happen eventually, all her anger and sadness had to come out sooner or later.”

I had never seen my mom in such a state of sadness and despair. Suddenly, I became anxious. What is happening? How should I help? Did I do something wrong? Interviewers with cameras flashed their questions inside my brain. I did not know what to do so I simply ran towards her and hugged her, since this was the only thing that helped me feel better. She stiffened at the touch of my arms wrapping themselves around her, I knew I was not invited to hear the conversation she was having.

      “I’ll call you later.” she says as she hangs up the phone and wipes her tears.

Time had stopped, the only thing my mom did was hug me and cry. I knew she must feel horrible, vulnerable, like a soldier in the middle of a battle that he knew was lost. We stayed in the same position for 10 minutes. I wanted to speak, the devil on my shoulder told me, Tell her not to cry, you hate to see her like that. She is hurting you. While the angel told me to listen and wait as I often needed. Fortunately, I let my trusty angel win, and let the bomb inside my mom explode. Once all the tears drained from her face, she looked up from my soaking wet shoulder.

      “Please, mom, I need to know what’s going on. You have been like this all this week, I have tried to ignore it, but I can’t anymore, please.” I say

  “Your grandmother has cerebral dementia. She’s forgetting things. Coqui can’t even remember what she had for breakfast. We are losing her!” She was shaking her head and fumbling her unsteady hands. She looked like a small child, confused and lost. “The woman who we once knew is fading away like a ship in the sea. The worst part is, we can't-do anything about it.”

I was thunderstruck. I had never experienced such a painful change. My hands started to tremble, my breath deepened, my eyesight blurred, my toes started wiggling as they do when I am anxious.  It wasn’t only a change, it was an ending. She might forget me, our times together, our  TV shows, she will forget me. I was facing a dead end and I needed the fog to clear, but some dead ends don't have a way across. I knew I had to be strong and hold back the river that was welling up in my eyes. I saw my mom look at me, expecting me to make her feel better, but how? All that she said was true. We can’t reverse the past and change demands to be acknowledged. I could only imagine what my extended family was thinking at the moment. As far as I knew, a change this big was unexpected and very unwelcome.

       “I don’t know what to say.” I felt my breath leave my body and suddenly the dam broke. It was my turn to cry. We both let the river flow down our cheeks. We both let our clothes get rained on by our tears.

       “I love you, mom. But you are wrong,” I say “There is something we can do. We can be with her, call her, drink out of the well until the last drop dries up. We have to love her and take care of her.”

       “Yes, you are right, I love you too.” She says and, once again we embrace.

That was an ending, a painful one. Like in the book Blood Red Snow White by Marcus Sedgwick, not all fairy tales have a happy ending. Change comes in different ways. A move, an illness, even a simple thing like rain in the desert is change. The only way to move on and grow is to embrace the change and make the most out of it. I had been blind all the years before. At the moment I had never thought of this but now I can’t stop remembering the lyrics Closing Time, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.”

  I had to let the rainfall.

       In the aftermath of this event, I started noticing how our already strong family bond became firmer. It grew, just like Jack’s beanstalk. It could reach higher heights and support greater weight. We became like a kevlar vest against a bullet, unbreakable.

       Endings can’t be forced, as we can’t plan for change. We cannot mark our calendars and expect life to be different after a certain day, as many of us do.

       It was New Year's Eve and I was in Cartagena, Colombia. Every year had been the same, the grown-ups had gone to a party and my brother, cousin, and I stayed in my grandmother’s apartment. This was the same year my grandmother had done her tests, and our worst fears were confirmed. 2016 was a hectic year, full of happiness and sadness, anger and peace. My world had suddenly turned upside down in an irreversible way. I saw December 31 as a day that would change everything. That day was magical. At 12:00 every human being was going to be able to change and follow their New Year’s resolution. I had a jumpy feeling in my stomach the whole day. I waited attentively all day long. When all the grown-ups had left to their annual party, I sat upright in my grandmother’s bed and waited, waited, waited. Everyone around me had fallen asleep, but I wasn’t about to give in. After an eternity of waiting, two minutes were left until my life would change, once again. I woke my cousin and brother up and dragged them to the balcony where we would be able to appreciate the fireworks.

        Six, five, four, three, two, one! The bay lit up with celebration coming from every corner of the street. I looked around with a glint in my eye. My brother was looking at the horizon while my cousin was texting all her friends. Everything was exactly the same as it was a minute before. I had made myself believe that my fate would change just because a new year had come. I tried to tell myself that everything was okay, but deep down I was disappointed, then angry. How could I believe that all the problems I had had during the year would just disappear after the clock struck 12?

After a year full of mixed emotions, I finally had my moment of epiphany, I realized that everyone deals with change in different ways. That mindfulness will help me move on and not get stuck in the past. Some people get tangled in the branches of a problem with no reason. We have to let the current flow and take the past with it. During many moments of my life, I have felt discouraged and depressed, as if I was diving underwater and every time I went deeper and deeper more pressure fell over me. It has taken me a lot of optimism and determination to be able to leave the past behind. It has taken me time to learn how to forgive. For a long time, I felt guilty. I thought that I could have prevented my grandmother’s sickness, that I could have prevented my thoughts of giving me false hope. Don’t take me wrong, I am still not at the end of the tunnel. Part of me still dwells on the past and is reluctant to forgive myself.  I know I have said it a million times, and I will say it a million times more, change is the magnet and we are all the metal, it will follow us forever and as Anthony J. D’Angelo once said, “Don’t fear change, embrace it.” This is vital for what some call success, but for what I call happiness.