Impactful Family Experience

Chapter 2

In fifth grade I tried out for the cheerleading squad and didn’t make it.  I had tried very hard to learn the cheers and the moves and I’ve always been sort of peppy so I thought this shouldn’t be hard at all!  I remember walking home that day and thinking that I needed to face my family.  My Mom was very supportive as always but my Mom and Dad were divorced so I really didn’t need to face him but I wanted his support.  I remember calling him and crying over the phone and explaining to him that I wasn’t chosen to be on the squad.  My Dad and I didn’t have much of a relationship but I do remember him consoling me and telling me that if I practiced hard enough that I would have a chance at making the squad the next year. 

When I read Grace Paley’s Mother I actually thought of my Dad.  In this short writing, Paley talks about longing to see “her Mother in the doorway” (Paley, 2010) again and in fact longing to see her anywhere because in the end she had passed and there was no more seeing her at all.  I lost my Father 4 years ago and anytime I have something in my life that is good or bad I long to see him to talk through my experiences. 

Paley, G. (2010). Mother. In M. &. Krasny, Sound Ideas (p. 172). New York: McGraw-Hill.