Crouching+Tiger


 * Editor: how could i be more descriptive?/where**? //I think the descriptions you have are affective to engaging the reader, however you may want to include more details of your surroundings, compare and contrast the look and 'feel' of your parents separate homes.//
 * did you get my point of view and message?** //What I gained from the story was your strong respect and relationship with your mother, that you are an extremely strong and understanding woman that can look at others' mistakes, and achievements, and reflect on how it affects you in the future, good or bad.//
 * What are the strengths and weaknesses?** //I think you are strongest in relaying specific emotions to the audience, and you are a talented storyteller. It was nice and effective to compare certain parts of the story to outside sources, such as Pavlov's dog and your father being your Achilles heel. As for weaknesses, I would suggest looking at a few run-on sentences, and changing them to give stronger meaning behind the story. Overall, your story affected me, and changed the way I looked at my own parents, thank you.//
 * did i evoke emotion in you as the reader?** //Yes, I felt the emotion and pain as I read your narrative. Your story made me reflect on my own relationship with my parents, and how their actions have affected me.//

//Sidenotes:// //Very balanced between story and reflection. Start looking into describing other senses, such as smell, touch, and sound to engage readers more in depth then just feelings.//

You engage the reader very well with your opening paragraph. I was interested to learn more about your life through the way you wrote descriptively and painted a vivid scene as I read. I especially liked when you repeated the line "When I was 7 my mother was working three jobs.." in the fifth paragraph because it ties in your idea. There is a good balance between reflection and story telling as well as at the end the emotional effect of saying "Thank you mom, and thank you dad."

I think you accompished setting that moment in time in your first paragraph. you grabbed my attention from your first sentence "if i were my mother...". i really understood how you felt, because i had to go through a similar situation, and i could really relate to your story and your emotions. I also think you had just enough of story telling and reflection in your narrative. Great Story! I love you daddy.

If I were my mother in college I would be raising a 7 year old and dealing with a bastard husband. When I was five, my mother was working three jobs to support me, and making her way through the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. As if this was not enough of an undertaking my father and his girlfriend were not much help. As I watched my mother study late at night I often wondered if everyone else’s life was just like mine. I remember those moments where my mom would say “ It will be easier for you baby, I’m doing this for you.” I now understand the weight to her claims.

What I knew at that moment was that my mom had a lot to do and I never really saw her not running to a job or studying Spanish flash cards. As an outlet she would take me to my dad’s for a few days and then pick me up again. I saw this as normal. While at my dad’s house things were often more tranquil, there was no bustling from job to job or from classes hauling me around and dropping me off. At my dad’s things were homey. It was not until my mom came to pick me up one summer afternoon that I realized this tranquil state I admired so much had completely changed who I was. I will never forget that day, when my mother pulled up and instead of running out to her car I sat in the house, dazing out the window at a stranger. As I walked at a sluggish pace outside all I could see was this face that seemed so familiar but was yet so foggy. The rosy lips that traced a beautiful white toothed smile and the dark grayish blue eyes that I myself owned. I began to cry as I fell into her arms. This was my mother, the woman who was working so hard for me, and yet I was about to say the one thing that would make her heart shatter like broken glass.

I looked into her eyes and remember softly repeating as if it had me repeatedly fed to me like Pavlov’s dog, “ Mom, I don’t wanna live with you anymore. I want to stay here with dad and Marlina.” To this day I will never forget the feeling of my soul as it shrunk into something that was no longer mine to possess but others to manipulate. She looked into my eyes as tears welled in hers and relied” Come on, get into the car sweetie.” As we drove home I remember faintly her speaking to me about what made me say that, if they were my true feelings. Later that day the echoing sound of her on the phone with my father was abundant, bouncing off the walls like shards of glass. I had told her that dad promised me a life where I would never have to worry about money and could have whatever I wanted, I would always have someone to play with and would never have to be bounced from house to house again if I said I wanted to live with him forever. I never could look my mother in the eyes and say this to her without crying. I wanted so badly to love her.

Truth be told that after this day I lost a lot of respect for my father at a young age. He had convinced me that my rock, my own mother, was not making me happy. He took my impressionable mind, the mind that longed for a mother, daughter, and father relationship and used it against my mother. He used me.

When I was 7 my mother was working three jobs, in college and raising me. But she was doing so much more, she was teaching me how to raise myself. When I went to my father’s house after that day I had a new self-reassurance. I knew exactly what I wanted and what I didn’t. I wanted to be there for my mom, to be her support and to show her that everything she was doing for me was not going to waste. What I did not want was to ever leave my heart open to be mangled in my parent’s war again. When I re-approached my separated family lives after that day I was changed, I was aware that the man who contributed to my life was not on my side at all, he would never stop trying to do what was best for himself. I had learned that though my mother never intended for her own self betterment to do anything but make my future better, she had helped me learn a valuable life lesson. This lesson is not that my father is a conniving man, this lesson is that no matter what the situation I may have to be put into to have a better life I can always handle it. I have the ability to think for myself and to look at my life and change it to how I see fit. She taught me that no one could stand in the way of my dreams.

As I am now sitting in my own room, studying Spanish and working, bouncing from one place to another I realize that my mom did a lot more for me than she will ever know. Going to school did not just provide me with a more stable life, it provided me with the skills to be able to do what ever is necessary to succeed. She showed me that to succeed sometimes means letting other’s be affected so they may grow to. I cannot imagine being in college with a 7 year old, working three jobs, and dealing with a bastard husband that wants nothing more than to take away your sunshine. To take away the one thing that you are working so hard to ensure will have it easier than you. My mother is my hero, and if that means that my father is my Achilles heel than so be it. I am the product of a strong, fearless woman. I am the woman my mother worked so hard to make me. Thank you mom, and thank you dad.