How is it fair for a child to be separated from family? The answer is it is not. Children should never be separated from family, it changes their whole life, makes them a different person, and changes the way they handle what the world throws at them. Unfortunately many children are separated from family, and I am here to talk about 2 children in particular. Ishmael in A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, is forced to leave home abandoning his family at only age 12 in fear of being killed from the war going on during the 1990’s. Ishmael then takes on responsibility for keeping himself alive and his friends he travels with. A character different than Ishmael, Delphine, can relate to Ishmael in a less extreme case. Delphine from One Crazy Summer
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When Ishmael fled from home he wound up in a town pushing a rusty wheelbarrow, he describes, “[...]in a town where the air smells of blood and burnt flesh. The breeze brings the faint cries of those whose last breaths are leaving their mangled bodies. I walk past them. Their arms and legs are missing; their intestines spill out through the bullet holes in their stomachs; brain matter comes out of their noses and ears. The flies are so excited and intoxicated that they fall on the pools of blood and die [..] My tattered crapes are soaked with blood [...] I feel no physical pain, so I am not sure whether I have been wounded [...] The wheelbarrow in front of me contains a dead body wrapped in white bedsheets [...]” (Beah 18). The words in this quote are very descriptive in making you feel like you are there; feeling the pain and graphic images Ishmael experienced. Ishmael’s unjust experience in this case is the fact that at just 12 years old he has to leave home; he does not get to take any personal items, and he does not get to go with his family. Put yourself in his place; would you be able to get up one day and just leave everything behind? Would you be able to live your life in fear of what step you take next? Constantly thinking that your death could be just beyond your path? I could not. This one day for Ishmael changes his whole life forever. He is no longer a child; he no longer is this naive little boy, his innocence is gone. He has experienced so much in such a short period of time; this changes his life forever. Similar to Ishmael’s situation, Delphine faces a life changing injustice. Her mother leaves her and her sisters when she is just 5 years old. For the first time in forever Delphine, and her two sisters, Fern, and Vonetta, are going to visit their mother in Oakland California. They arrive and their mother you can see how their mother is pushing
When Ishmael fled from home he wound up in a town pushing a rusty wheelbarrow, he describes, “[...]in a town where the air smells of blood and burnt flesh. The breeze brings the faint cries of those whose last breaths are leaving their mangled bodies. I walk past them. Their arms and legs are missing; their intestines spill out through the bullet holes in their stomachs; brain matter comes out of their noses and ears. The flies are so excited and intoxicated that they fall on the pools of blood and die [..] My tattered crapes are soaked with blood [...] I feel no physical pain, so I am not sure whether I have been wounded [...] The wheelbarrow in front of me contains a dead body wrapped in white bedsheets [...]” (Beah 18). The words in this quote are very descriptive in making you feel like you are there; feeling the pain and graphic images Ishmael experienced. Ishmael’s unjust experience in this case is the fact that at just 12 years old he has to leave home; he does not get to take any personal items, and he does not get to go with his family. Put yourself in his place; would you be able to get up one day and just leave everything behind? Would you be able to live your life in fear of what step you take next? Constantly thinking that your death could be just beyond your path? I could not. This one day for Ishmael changes his whole life forever. He is no longer a child; he no longer is this naive little boy, his innocence is gone. He has experienced so much in such a short period of time; this changes his life forever. Similar to Ishmael’s situation, Delphine faces a life changing injustice. Her mother leaves her and her sisters when she is just 5 years old. For the first time in forever Delphine, and her two sisters, Fern, and Vonetta, are going to visit their mother in Oakland California. They arrive and their mother you can see how their mother is pushing