How I Lost Pa and My Dream - Essay Example

According to the paper just a moment ago, he was with me and a moment later…he was left alone. He stretched my hand towards the roof to have the last hand shake with him, his eyes shut tight, and tears oozing out of them. He wanted to scream, but he could hardly make a sigh. It seemed as if he had lost my voice…like he had never spoken…like he didn’t know any language…like he didn’t know himself….like he never existed!!! The author had lost Pa! Pa and Ma raised him since his parents divorced when he was only 2.

Dadda divorced Momma and left Amy and he with he. The reporter  can still feel the cool fragrant breeze slapping his cheeks red. "His thick grey moustaches pricked me like a bunch of needles as he kissed me on my cheek. Pa was retired from the army. He had been at the forefront in the Second World War, and had fought passionately for his country, killing tens of Germans. He used to take pride while talking about his contribution in the war. I still remember how his face lit up like a lamp, his eyes and teeth sparkled like stars and his chest broadened up while he reflected upon his war experiences.

But all was gone when he lost John, his son in the Afghanistan War. Everything changed in my and Pa’s life after John’s death. Pa was never the same person again. I often saw him lament to God for having shed the blood in the Second World War. No more did he ever take pride in killing the Germans. Ma often told how he suddenly got dumbfounded in his sleep. Pa had started to dream of the Second World War. Almost for the whole year before his death, every night was a nightmare for all of us.

His post-war trauma didn’t show up until the very last year of his life. During the day, his conversation would suddenly drift towards the battle. I remember how happy he was one day as he told me how he had found Ma, “I was taking Paula [my Ma] out for the dinner. It was raining… (pause) … And I killed him, and him, one, two, three and there was blood everywhere!!!" As the author's paper outlines "Time and again, he started to recall his war experiences. He made me fly through the time and smell blood.

He made me feel what death felt like. A strange cold wave struck me like an electric shock every time he did that. I could see the trenches and pieces of the bodies through his eyes. He begged me to give up the notion of fighting for my country, for he thought the war wasn’t for freedom like they would want me to believe. I still cultivated a very light wish of joining the armed forces Marines until one day, Pa escorted me to the store room and opened his trunk before my eyes. He picked up a blood stained foul smelling and bedraggled German hat that he had kept as a sign of victory from one of the soldiers he had shot in the head right above the left ear."