Taylor Dougherty

Narrative Essay
Engl. 1302
September 18, 2018
Steven Watkins, Professor
 I was crying and screaming as I was ripped from my mother’s weak grasp on my little

five year old body. I will never forgot the look on my mother's face as I was going away it was

one in which her eyes were full of tears and she looked as if she wanted to say something, but the

words just would not come out. I was kidnapped and put into the front of a moving van from

Tallahassee Florida, all the way to Princeton, Texas where I would live out the rest of my days in

misery and despair. Well this is what I thought when I was five years old and had not yet learned

the concept of understanding change in my everyday life. Of course when everything changes for

a five year old or at least for me I thought that my life was over it seemed like nothing was going

to be the same. I think this might be because when I was five I did not have any sense of

responsibility yet, but the move certainly made me feel as if there was a huge burden on my

shoulders because everything happened so quickly, and I really did not know what was

happening. There is rarely a day that goes by where I do not think of my final day with my

mother, because I have only seen her one time after my final time. Many people might see me

thinking about my mom often as a bad thing, but I think that coming to accept what happened

and why it happened as an important part of growing as a person. This experience has also taught

me many lessons that some people may not learn till they are older, or may never learn at all.

And although the situation is still a bit fuzzy as to why in my head, I think I might be finally

starting to figure out what people mean when they say “Everything happens for a reason.”

All my life I have wondered why. That is the question that is always running through my

mind. I have asked my grandfather a couple times why and the answer is rather simple although I

always seem to think that there may be more to it. My grandfather tells me that my mother was a

drug user and that she was super unmotivated to take care of a child. Maybe it is just that I am

overthinking this, but my grandpa never goes into full details he only seems to tell me the same
thing over and over again and insists that there is no deeper reason. There are a couple reasons

why I think there is more to it. My grandpa does not ever go into detail about what kind of drugs

she was abusing. I do not think it is imperative for me to know, but I think I deserve to know

now that I am 16 and think that I am mature enough to know. See it is about the principle that I

think I have the right to know, but maybe ignorance is bliss. This also applies to my second

reason is that my Grandpa will never go into specifics about what he means when she said “She

was not motivated to be a parent.” My initial thought was that maybe he did not want me to feel

worthless in a sense, but I do not think that is it at all, as I think I have come to a couple

conclusions of my own.

As I mentioned before I have only seen my mom one other time after my final time and

that is when she came to visit me at my house in Texas. When she came I must have been 10,

because I remember this all quite well. Now I was excited I had not seen my mom in five years

and I missed her dearly, but I am not too sure she felt the same. Despite not seeing me for five

years she did not seem to care to see me that much despite how hysterical she was when I left.

This has always left a bad taste in my mouth, because she told me she had kicked the drugs but

she still seemed just as my grandpa described her “unmotivated and lazy. “This is because she

did not seem excited to support me in my favorite activities. When I was 10 just like every other

kid I played football and went to school. I had at least 1 football game a week and I won’t hide it

I was very excited for my mom to come and watch, but as my grandpa and I got into the car I

realized there was just one thing missing, my mom. I asked my grandpa “where’s mom?” He

replied bluntly “she just woke up and doesn’t feel like coming.” This is when my whole mindset

started to changed, I stopped missing my mom and I started to appreciate how much my grandpa

had really done for me in those five years of living with him and everything after that.
 I love my grandpa and living in a single parent household has helped me learn a lot. My

grandpa has taught me that you do not have to be good at everything, and that it is okay to try

something and not like it. This had molded me into who I am today, because I don't feel like I

have missed out on anything, because if I wanted to do it I would have tried it already. This lets

me live my life being fulfilled and without feeling like something is missing. I think a key factor

in the way my grandpa has raised me has to do with what he says is the “failure in the upbringing

of your mother.”

I think there is a common misconception when it comes to being raised by a grandparent.

People ask me if I feel like something is missing and of course I always tell them no. People

forget that a grandparent is was once a parent and has more experience than any mom or dad

ever could, unless they have raised multiple children. This is another reason why I know in my

life I am not missing anything, because my grandpa knows what works and what does not. This

means if I ever feel like I am missing something from my life I always know it must be for a

certain reason, rather than just that he hates me.

Today I still live with my grandpa. I will always remember the last time I saw my mom

waving telling me how much she would miss me, and that she would always love me and

remember me. I realized that sometimes you have to make the best of every situation presented

to you, especially if you have no say in the matter. Having this little bit of knowledge has

affected how I live my life every day, and made my life a little better each day moving forward.