Rough draft of essay#1 writing memoir by sophie

Rough draft of essay #1

ENGL 1301 d

Hyunah Jung (Sophie)

Ah Pha

I remember the day I was eight years old living in Suwon, South Korea, my parents got divorced and they chose my brother and me to live with my father whom I considered the scariest person in the world. After eleven years of living with my father, my brother joined an army as duty for the country. When my brother left for the army, I never expected leaving my father.

Since there were only two of us in the house, we got closer than ever before t and the fear about my father began to vanish. I would tell him about school, friends, everything except mother’s story. He was always jealous of my mother for some reason. This jealousy became one of my reasons to be more careful mentioning mother in order to improve our relationship. Three months later after my brother joined the army; we visited him. The day went well except for fact that father started to act weirdly. He kept avoiding eye-contact with me, frowning at me or talking to me nonchalantly.

Next day, we were eating dinner in an awkward atmosphere. Suddenly, He said, “I don’t want you to talk to your mom while I am raising you.” I responded, “Why? How could you even expect me not to talk or see my own mother?” He replied, “She doesn’t deserve to see you or your brother and I am the one taking care of you, not your mother who left you.” I walked into my room because I could not help my eyes filling up with tears. Four or five days had gone by avoiding him and finally he came up to me throwing a paper at me which showed my recent call lists including mom’s. “Didn’t I tell you not to talk your mom?” I didn’t know how make him understand that I can’t keep my mom away from me. I was always obedient daughter, but for the first time, I disobeyed him and screamed, “No I won’t listen to you this time; you can’t stop me talking to mom!” and he said as he always does, “If you are not going to listen to me, there is no reason I take care of you! Go to your mom’s house then!”

In spite of fact that I had kept decent relationship with him, I always wanted to live with mom, but I was not brave as to tell him I would, but madness and disappointment motivated me so I shouted in a trembling voice, “You know what? I am going to! I can’t stand of your possession and being irrational anymore!” He walked away from the house telling me to pack all my stuff and he would drop me off at my mom’s house when he gets back. My heart was beating so fast and my knees were trembling.

After few hours, I got done packing, and was waiting him to be back. A bit later, I could hear his steps going up stairs and each step would stimulate all my nerves. As he walked into house, he called me to come in living room and sit on couch, so I sat down and looked at him with nonchalance. After deep sigh, he asked me, “I see you had packed your stuff, so that means you are really going to leave me and live with your mom? You can’t make any concession at all?” “Yes, I am going to, and I can’t” I replied, immediately.

It only took us twenty minutes to drop me off at mom’s house. There were not any good bye hugs, tears or reconciliations between us. As he carried all my packs, he left and I didn’t even feel sad or sorry for him at all that I had just left father whom I lived with for eleven years and I only felt released and excited to live with mom instead of thinking about how he would feel being alone at empty house.

As I expected, living with mom was so great, blissful enough to make me forget about past events with father. The memory of father became less and less in my mind and I didn’t even feel guilty at all. After I moved in my mom’s house, my life changed a lot. One of the biggest change was she gave me an opportunity of studying abroad where I am living in now, the United States. By that time, I really thought I made right choice leaving father. The process of moving to the United States worked out so fast that I could leave my country in a year. I was always aware of the fact that I left the issue between father and me unsolved, but I was so busy and overwhelmed to struggle living in another country alone.

When it had been several months since I moved, my first birthday in the United States came. By that time, I did not know many people, so few friends of mine got together for small celebration. As I got back home, like I always did, I checked my e-mails but then, one e-mail sent by familiar name caught my eyes. It was e-mail from my father who I hadn’t talked to over a year also, become such a small part of my life. As I opened it up, my heart started beating again. It was simple, one sentence saying “Happy birthday my daughter. I love you and I am sorry.” I felt like something inside of me had just popped up.

I wish I could express or describe more accurately how I really felt. I knew I was supposed to talk to him first to be reconciled, but blaming being busy, and honestly, my pride never let me to do; however, seeing my father says “sorry” to me, it was not just something I wanted. I felt really sorry and started realizing how I ended up with him in childish way, how I hurt him, how lonely he would be in big empty house alone, all of guilty conscience which I couldn’t see before. Thinking of him also led me realizing fact that how great he was as ah pha which means father when he raise me, the love he gave me and we could never go back to how we used to be.