Gwen's Childhood: Personal Narrative Analysis

A few of Gwen’s perceptions of her childhood:

Perception plays such a critical part in separating the “positive” from the “negative” about anyone, but especially about our closest relatives. We tend to remember, or sensationalize, certain events – quite often the negative ones, while not putting enough emphasis on the positive ones. Perhaps that’s because of their normalcy… but, in turn, these activities constitute the greater part of our daily lives.

Growing up it seems to me that there was always music in our house, i.e. the radio, the record player, or just singing. My mother loved to sing and she could harmonize to anything - played the ukulele too, ( mainly at parties with their friends). She and dad sang a lot; however, while

Both of my parents, in their own way, were very sensitive people. They both were the products of their upbringing in the culture in which they were raised. As I was growing up, I became aware of the sacrifices that they were making for me, as well as for each other. Money wasn’t readily available, and so these were lean times; however, I never felt that I was deprived of anything I needed or sincerely wanted. They were pretty good at turning lemons into lemonade.

My mother was very deep and was extremely perceptive and understanding. She had a keen sense of humor accompanied with a darling laugh, and yet there was often a sadness in her core. She hid it well and would always try to make my life happy, from the best tuna salad sandwich I ever had (she was a perfectionist) to going to a movie and getting ‘a sundae’ afterwards, or just talking or listening to me. She succeeded in making little everyday things fun like waiting for the Angelus bells to ring at noon on Holy Saturday (the official end of Lent at that time) with a chocolate marshmallow egg ready to savor, and an ice-cold

Well, when I was eight, Santa brought a two-wheel bicycle (one down, two to go). When I was nine, the piano came. It was an ‘old’ upright piano that my dad bought for $10 from the family of my grandmother’s neighbor who had committed suicide, and that was kind of creepy, but it played (and so, two down, one to go). Until a few months before my 11th birthday, I was an ‘only’ and ‘lonely’ child. In my earlier years, I had pleaded with my parents to ‘buy’ a little brother or sister for me from the hospital, and I just wasn’t able to understand why my dad couldn’t stop by the hospital on his way home from work to purchase a baby. To my exasperation, his excuse was always, “I forgot.” Well, they finally gave in and ‘bought’ me a little brother, the light of my life. I paraded him around like he was some kind of trophy. I took him everywhere with me, either pulling him in the little red wagon or sitting him in the metal basket on my bicycle, which, unfortunately, made waffle marks on his little legs. I WAS HAPPY!!! My three wishes had come