Narrative Essay about My Family

When thinking of a family, you most likely picture a happy mom, a stubborn dad, and a loving child or children. The image you have in your head is a happy image, a happy family. Well I hate to break it to you but not all families are like that. For example my family, my family consists of myself, my dad and our dog. But although we are not the ideal family, we are a happy family above all. So let me tell you a story, my story. 

My parents were happy together, very much in love and young. They married young and life was good, they struggled but struggled together. Soon after they were married they had me, their only child. After I was born my mom experienced postpartum depression which is when a mother may feel at “lost” or “empty” after giving birth to a baby, the mother may not even have any motherly attachment to their child. My mother was one of them, and with that being said she eventually fell into a depressive episode due to her experiencing postpartum depression. With my mother, Hether being depressed she turned to drugs and alcohol to numb her pain away.  That put a big toll on my parents' marriage and the way I was raised. When my dad would try and get my mom help or even mention it she would become very violent and angry at him. 

With my mom becoming a depressed, aggressive alcoholic, and drug addict that left my dad with many hard choices to make, “Should I leave the mother of my child?”, “What do I do?”, “How can I help my wife?”, and many more struggles and questions he did not have the answers to. I always wonder why it took so long for my dad to finally leave my mom, I think it was when my mom finally hit me. At the age 8 I was a 3rd grader who lived right around the corner from my elementary school. My mom would normally come and pick me up but for some reason on this day she did not, so I decided to walk home since it was close. 

When I got home I instantly knew my mom was going to be drunk and in a bad mood, her face was flushed, her posture was sloshed, her eyes filled with rage. My dad would always avoid her while she was drunk. Now you may be asking yourself  “Why is she home alone with her drunk mother?”, well my dad was the only one of my parents that worked so he had no choice but to leave me home alone with her. With my mom in a bad mood I decide to leave her alone and do my homework downstairs, but she approaches me and tells me “Put on a movie”, I tell her “No, I have homework.” , that was a bad move on my part. She leaves me alone for a while but then comes back, this time I can smell the fresh stench of alcohol coming from her breath and seeping through her pores. This time she is not having it with me, I can tell I was in trouble but I did not know why I was in trouble. Hether approaches me and tells me once again, “Put. On. A. Movie.”, I listened to her this time because I did not want to upset her more; as I put on the movie I turned around and saw my mother drinking from a 1.75 liter glass bottle of Captain Morgan Spiced Rum. This instantly makes me cry because I am scared for myself and have never seen my mom drink so much in such little time. As I am crying she sees me, my crying is what pushed her over the edge, she came up to me and slapped me right across the face telling me to “Shut my mouth and stop crying!”.

This was the first of many slaps and kicks I received from her that day. She did not let up or stop hitting me when she heard me scream and cry out for her to stop. In that moment, the 8 year old girl that I was just wanted nothing more than to die. I was afraid my mom was going to beat me to death. That is a feeling I will never forget. Luckily, she did stop hitting me and left me alone on the floor of our living room crying and in pain. My mother went up into her room and left me alone. One thing she did not know is that I was taught by my dad how to call the police when and if a situation like that day had ever come up. With that being said, I called the police while my mom was in her room and I told them where I live and what had happened. Once the police arrived they arrested my mother, she tried to resist but that did not work. As she was walking by the living room she saw me sitting with Officer Lara explaining what had happened with her. I remember hearing her asking the officer “Can I say goodbye to my daughter?”, the officer replied with “No, you do not deserve to talk to her.”. That was the last time I saw my mom for about 2 years. Soon after those 2 years passed I was able to see her once a week but I ended that very quickly because I realized she did not change. Now, I no longer have a relationship with my mother.

This impacted and changed me in a good way. I learned that we may love someone with everything we have but that does not justify the way they can treat us, or the way they may make excuses for their actions. I lost a parent after that day, although it may be a sad story to some it is not a sad sorry for me because I made the best of it with my dad. I am so lucky to have him as my only family.