Family Matters

As I asked my mom the first question, about what expectations she had for me before I was born, she looked at me shocked and said nothing. I continued to prompt, trying to get some sort of answer, and she said literally all that mattered was having healthy babies. When I continued to question her, she explained to me why. My grandma had 7 miscarriages and 1 successful birth of a baby girl, who died when she was 3 months old. Finally my grandpa said no more and they adopted 2 children, my uncle and my mom. Because of this past, my grandparents basically said everything my mom did would cause a miscarriage, because this was what they believed/were told. She couldn't lift her arms over her head, or eat too much garlic (which is hard for us Italians). She lived in fear everyday that she would do something wrong and her baby would die, so all she ever prayed for and expected was a healthy baby. The values question was a difficult one for my mom to answer. Raising us on her own, she has done her best to teach us all that she could, and to be the best version of ourselves. She said that she tried to raise us with a sense of charity and service, as well as compassion and kindness. She also tried to instill a sense of family, home, love, and friendship. Done with the moral values, my mom said she also tried to teach us good work ethics and always told us to prioritize God first, then family, then work. My mom said that I act nothing like my father. I have my personality from her. It's a personality "filled with color" as she put it. That my giggles and love for laughter, happiness, and life itself come from her. I have also inherited her flexibility and free-spirit, enabling us to plan trips and change plans in a heartbeat (not always what my siblings like to do). I found this interesting because I haven't seen my father in 11 years so I was curious if she thought this was because of that, or I was born that way. To answer this question she told me that my brother and sister are much more like my father. Saying that the way they analyze and think about everything they are going to do is very much like him. Also, their stubbornness and need to always have the final word comes from him as well. Finally I asked her if there was anything from him she saw in me. She told me I got his big brown eyes and thick eye lashes, however, nobody knows where I got my height. She also said that in the morning I wake up just like he does, "like a turtle coming out of it's shell" is how she described it, emerging from the blankets in the morning, rather than burying myself under them (like my sister). I think looking at these things were especially interesting because they show what my brother, sister, and I received genetically from our father (because none of us know him) and what we all inherited from my mother as she raised us.

Tuesdays With Morrie

In Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch quickly became the portrayal of a typical American. He was so focused on deadlines and time management that he rarely stopped to think and enjoy himself. This focus on deadlines stems from his, like many other's, obsession with success. He was so focused on having a "full" and "complete" life, thinking the way to do this was by creating a family, making lots of money, and having a successful/steady job. Even his Tuesdays spent with Morrie began for work, recording his stories and theories for his writing. Another folkway of the American culture that Mitch holds true is to not talk about death. Whenever the subject would come up, Mitch would change subjects, and if it didn't, he avoided it. 

Morrie, on the other hand, consistently breaks these folkways. He openly speaks about death and what is happening to him, often relaying his belief that "we must love each other or die". Morrie also teaches Mitch something that many Americans should learn, to just stop and appreciate. He wants Mitch to just stop, to take a break from all of his deadlines and requirements, and to look around and see the beauty in the world and appreciate the life he was given. Something that I really like that Morrie said was that "we always need others to survive. When we die, are born, and especially in between, however our culture looks down on dependency". I greatly agree with this statement. We all seek to become "independent". Personally, I have been looking forward to going away from home, far away, to college since I was probably about 9 years old. I love traveling alone and being able to get around without needing my mom to chauffeur me. Even though I enjoy this independence, I am still greatly aware of my dependence on others. I am connected to people and dependent on them for everything I do and receive. The food I buy from grocery stores, the gas I put in my car, the books I read, the clothes I wear, everything I use is made or grown or transported by someone else. I depend on my teachers, my parents, my friends, my employers, etc. This is not only me, but everyone in the WORLD, yet everyone glorifies this idea of independence, seeing it as a sign of success. It is like what Morrie says, "we must love each other or die". If we choose to not love each other, this dependency that keeps us alive will fail us, because we will refuse to accept this dependency or allow others to depend on us.