Week 6 - Diane Tran

After reading Professor Valverde's narrative "My mother not my mother" I felt a bunch of emotions of sadness, sorrow, and heartache. Professor Valverde always had a question in the back of her mind of the full story of why she was left behind. She always wondered why her mother could not love her how a mother should, and all she wanted was a mother. Reading Professor Valverde's own personal story made me reflect on my own. I remember when I used to see my father guzzle down bottle after bottles of alcohol. I remember how someone who was once the father I knew transform into a stranger of violent maelstrom lashing out at everyone. My father's alcoholic tendencies drove him to unemployment, DUI's, and a large debt, and worst of all, away from our family. I always wondered why it was hard to quit or why he would make promises to quit but never go through with it. He left me with only problems, debt, and a twisted reality. I thought that he was choosing his love for alcohol over me and our own family. Over time, I realized that even though I could not get the full love I wanted from my father I still loved him. And the rare chances he wasn't drunk, he was the loving dad I used to know all over again. After he passed away, I began to truly see him for who he was and not the alcohol. From time to time, he would enter my dreams talking to me and telling me how sorry he was and that he was watching over me.


Works Cited:
Kieu Linh Caroline Valverde. “My Mother Not My Mother.”
Hardy, Benjamin P. “31 Things That Happen When You Finally Decide to Live Your Dreams.” SUCCESS, 30 Nov. -1, www.success.com/31-things-that-happen-when-you-finally-decide-to-live-your-dreams/.