LITERARY NARRATIVE ESSAY
Prompt: Address the question: How have I become the writer (or reader or student) I am today? 500-1000 words, MLA formatting with final word count next to the assignment title. Organization, style, and tone are up to the writer.
I was eight years old when I lost my dad. Being the eldest among the siblings, I had to bottle in my emotions in order to become the confidante of my mother and caretaker of my siblings. I never shared with anyone how death had been affecting me until a decade later when my English teacher asked us to write a flash fiction with the title, “Winter Turns to Spring.”
When I started writing, the first thing that came to my mind when thinking about winter was the moment when I was standing on the balcony overseeing the funeral procession downstairs. I didn’t have the guts to look at him when he was lifeless wrapped up in a white shroud. I wanted to preserve his memories from when his smile was from ear to ear as he picked me up in front of the entire audience after I secured the first position in Grade 1. So I took a step back and sat on the floor with my back to the wall, refusing to see him like that.
However, for the next decade, I had this regret in my heart that I should have looked at him. It was my last chance to see his face and his black coiled hair but I missed it and I never told anyone how that made me feel. Until I was asked to write about it and I poured my heart out in it remembering every little detail like it was yesterday.
I had to synthesize it together to the moment in the future when that cold heavy moment of my life had turned into a warm breeze of spring. It was the moment during my O Levels when I was on stage receiving an award and I looked at my family in the audience and felt a brick in my stomach. I imagined how my dad would have picked me up again like I am still his little girl. But after a moment the knot in my stomach was released and I was more hopeful than sad about his absence. I know that he is looking down at me with pride and if I continue to keep doing that, there is nothing sad about it.
When I finished this piece, I came to a realization that writing is an outlet for my emotions. It is a way I was able to come to terms with the trauma I had held inside of me. From that moment forward, I continued to write about my inner conflicts and it became a way for me to deal with my feelings without burdening anyone with my inner dilemma. Even though I was writing but I wasn’t ready to share my vulnerable side with the world. I always used to keep my writing in a locked folder for no one to see. I wasn’t sure how one would perceive my writings or how they will react to them. But then there was a friend of mine who happened to get her hands on my “Winter turns to Spring” writing piece and pushed me to send it to our undergraduate Arzu Anthology publication.
To my surprise, my flash fiction was selected to be published which made me realize that there are many who have felt like I did in that moment and it is okay to be vulnerable in your writing and to show the raw and intense emotions to your readers. So I continued to write about my life experiences and slowly more and more pieces were published. What started as an outlet became the source of my passion, as I write this essay as a MFA graduate student at Old Dominion University in the hope to finish my first novel for all the lonely people out there to know that they are not alone in this.