Personal Narrative: Life In The Dark Ages

For dinner my aunt had prepared corn beef and cabbage. After dinner, I helped her wash dishes. She said, “You’re a lot like your mother. I always said it was too bad she married a musician, who thought he had a gift for logic.” “He had some interesting ideas,” I said. “He used to hide his meanness behind his ideas. I knew she was in trouble when he convinced her to move into the city.” “What do you mean,” I asked? “He told her that by living with me in the woods, she would be inundated with my superstitions and be forced to endure a life in the Dark Ages. Yet, my beliefs enabled me to stop your uncle from beating me or committing suicide, but she couldn’t stop his drinking, his beatings, and finally, they drank themselves to death.” “Dad …show more content…
Wiping her lip with her index finger, she repeated, “You pray for the dead silently out of respect for their condition.” As I drove home, I thought about her words, ‘Out of respect….’ Those words summed up the truth of her beliefs. The effort of thinking made me drowsy during my drive home. I wondered who will carry on her traditions when I’m gone. Who will bury me if I don’t marry? When I arrived home, I was beginning to think it was imperative that I find a wife. I wanted to marry soon because I wanted children. I wanted my aunt to teach my children. Maybe I was like my father. He hid behind his behind alcohol and music. His feeling of insanity was a force behind his anger. Nobody knew he suffered from his war experiences like I suffered from mine. Yet, he was able to marry. I wondered could I find a woman if anytime I thought about anything I thought about Nam. I remember the red light district of Saigon. I remember going to those houses, but mostly I remember the everyday woman walking with children or along the dams of the rice paddies. I thought of Bao’s woman. She was blown apart because she had an American