Blog 7

My memoir is about how I felt when my grandmother died and how I take adantage of telling the grandparents that I still have how much they mean to me. My foocus is how important it is to tell the ones you love how much they mean to you on a daily basis and to treat everyday like Valentines day. While writing this story I certain of everything I wrote because it is the most vivid memory I have as a child. There is no alteration in anything from the smell of the house to making cookies, everything is exactly how I recalled and to make sure I called my mother who reconfirmed that day for me. The dialouge that I have in the beginning with my grandmother is the same conversation I have with her almost every week. There are no relevant details that I left out and the details that I added in the beginning of the story were meant to make the day seem beautiful so the readers can envision a Valentines Day morning. The tone I choose in the beginning is happy and peaceful and as I was writing the 2nd part I felt sad and also felt that it was insightful towards the end because I did learn something from that experience. My grandmother is my main focus and she was such an incredible woman, I probably didnt even idealize her enough. My motive was to get across how great she was and how special she was in my life.

Blog 6.5

Schwartz’s essay is about how to write a memoir that is based on truth events and drawing the line between a memoir and a fictional story. A good example of this is James Frey’s book. Even though Frey touches up events that he did experience, he exaggerates them which make them false. His story could have been a non fiction memoir but it is sadly a fictional story, one that I personally feel no one should spend time reading. I could understand if an author can not remember specific colors to things or outfits and if these changed aspects are not important to the story then I feel it is ok to stretch a little. Also, what I believe is ok to modify is the characters name so their identity is protected but anything else is unacceptable. It is not ok, however, to add characters and people that never existed, as Frey did in his book. All in all, I feel like what Frey did was wrong and I think he added all of those false experiences because he felt his life was too boring to be a good read.

Blog #6

Y Memoir Y

"Hello?"
"Hi Grandma, Its Erica"
"Oh hello Erica, how nice of you to call, how are you?"
"Im good grandma, I was just calling to let you know that I will stop over this weekend for lunch"
"Aw, that sounds great Erica, "

"Ok then I will see you friday. I love you grandma, and tell grandpa that I love him too"

"I will Erica, we love you too"

I know that I am privledged to have atleast 2 grandparents that are still apart of my life and after loosing my other 2 Ive learned to appreciate them more than ever. If Ive learned anything so far in life its that you should always remember to let the people that you love the most know every once in a while how important they are to you. I guess what I am trying to say is just treat every day as if it were Valentine's Day.

Its funny how there are those random things you remember from your childhood. Sometimes I cant even remember what I did last weekend but for some odd reason I can remember the burnt orange rug I sprawled out on at my great-grandmothers house when I would watch Barney and I remember going to the movie theatre for the very first time to see Beauty and the Beast, and how scared I was of that Beast. There is one memory in particular that will always be in my memory bank, vivid as ever.

It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm outside but especially beautiful because it was Valentines Day. I have loved Valentines Day since I was a little girl. . I loved the idea that it was a day to just say how much you loved everything. I would walk around to my dog Buffy and say, “Buffy, I love you” and then Id move on to my bear and say “Bella, I love you.” My mother and I made heart shaped cookies and the house smelt of fresh roses that my father gave my mother earlier that morning. We received small baskets with chocolates and a Valentines Day card and my sister and I presented our computer paper cards with crayon scribbles to our parents as well.

Around evening time, the phone rang and my mother answered it as she always did with this happy-go-lucky tone but then instead of hearing a loud and energetic tone I heard soft mumbles for awhile. My mother called me upstairs and sat me down on her bed, high enough that I had to really jump up to get on, and kneeled in front of me. She placed her hands on my legs and said “Erica, I am so sorry to tell you this but Grandma Irene passed away today. She’s gone”. I felt like I couldn’t swallow, the room seemed so small and I remember getting mad. I was so mad I pushed my mom away from me and ran to my room hysterical. When I got to my room I went right to my window and looked outside as I cried. Till this day whenever I get really upset and have to cry I go to my window and look outside. I don’t know why but for some reason it always comforts me.

My grandmother Irene was like a second mother to me. When my mother was pregnant with my little sister I stayed with my grandmother every day and after my mother gave birth she was horribly sick for 3 months after so those months I stayed with her as well. There was no place I would have rather been than at her house helping her clean and singing songs with her. She is the reason I am such a neat freak because she always took pride in what she had and took great care of it. She always knew how to make me smile and she would take me to the park whenever I went over and we would hold hands talking about everything and anything. The few months before she passed she was diagnosed with lung cancer and had to have a tube up her nose and had to carry around an oxygen tank. I hated that. It made me cry every time I saw it. When she went into the hospital I would make my mom take me everyday and I remember the time when I brought in nail polish and I painted her nails for her and I also painted the nails of the lady next to her, whose name was Mary.

At the wake I was horrible. I remember that room so vivid and as I saw her body I ran as fast as I could towards her and threw my body onto her. My mother and father had to pry me off and they decided that I had to be taken home and not be there anymore. I was screaming and crying and I remember not being able to go to the cemetery.

Looking back, I can still hear her Hungarian accent, accenting the C in Erica every time she called my name. I can still smell the peanut butter cookies we made and the smell of the pledge we used to clean all of her furniture. I remember her smell and how comforting her hugs were. I am 21 years old now and I have never touched a cigarette. I told myself I would never smoke because it was what killed my grandmother and it’s a promise to me that I will always keep for her. I look back on this and I could cry write now but I am also so happy that I was so upset for someone in my life because it meant that I was blessed with someone so special in my life. On Valentines Day I try to be happy but deep down it always brings me back to that day 14 years ago. I now see Valentines Day as not just a day to tell who and what you love the most that you love them but a day to embrace the things and people you once loved as well.

Blog #5

Overall, my essay is about how my mother has helped me through the worst time in my life so far and how I am able to help her as well. I dont think there is any better feeling that having my mother rely on me for support when all of these years I have been needing her. I love how our relationship has grown outside of the boundaries of just mother and daughter but more of a woman to woman friendship.

My audience would be around my age group, which is teenagers who are coming into adulthood. I think this story works for teens because most teens hope to oneday have a closer relationship with their parents when they get older. Hearing my story also sends the message that even though our parents are the older, wiser and stronger figures in our lives, they can also become just as weak as us.

My purpose is to show that I have suffered and gone through the worst time in my life and not only did I bounce back enough to be able to help someone else out but I did it with help. Many times teens shut their parents out of their lives but there is noone who loves you more in this life than your parents and that is something I have learned more than ever in the past year.

My format is segmented almost like a set of hills. I fall down then with help I rise up and then my mother falls down and I am trying to get her to the top with me. Overall, it is broken into four parts.

Blog #3

Brainstorming

Time I was most scared
The time I was the most scared in my entire life was when I was on my dock at my shore house leaning over the lagoon with a little net in my hand and I was trying to reach the small fish in the water. As I went to swoop up the fish I fell into the water. If you’re not familiar with lagoons, in the water lurks crabs and eels and turtles and everything that I thought was going to attack my little feet. I clung to the dock and when I tried to scream NOTHING came out! Finally the neighbor across the lagoon saw my head in the water and my little fingers clasping onto the wood and screamed to my mother who was NOT paying attention to me that I was in the water. I couldn’t speak for about an hour and I told my mom I hated her for not watching me.

Most important people in my life
My mother is the most important person in my life. She has gotten me through everything whether it was sicknesses, heartaches, disappointments, or failures she has always picked me up.

My grandfather is also a huge part of my life. He is the one person that I want to please all of the time. He always goes out of his way to make me smile and even though he doesn’t talk much he has his way of showing his love. I pride myself on being his favorite and even though he can’t admit it I know I am

My boyfriend is also so important to me. He is who unwinds me after a long stressful day and when I am with him nothing else really matters.

My best friend Christa is also important in my life. She is the one friend I know that would be there if I ever needed anything. I have known her since 3rd grade and I hope our friendship never ends.



A Place that is most important to me
My shore house is really important to me. I have grown up there every summer and it is the one place that brings all of our family together. When we are there, my cousins are jumping in the pool, I tan with my sister, my brother and his son are playing video games, my uncle is fishing off the dock, my mom is relaxing on the boat, my dad is playing cards in the den with my boyfriend, my grandfather is fixing something around the house and my grandmother is cooking. There’s nothing better than a beautiful summer’s day at a beautiful place, in a quiet peaceful neighborhood and in company of your family.

A Family Story
The one story my grandmother always tells about me is the time I split milk on her rug when I was 7 years old. My grandmother was furious and said “Erica, next time you do that I’m going to pull every hair out of your head”. It was a little extreme but her rule was no food in the living room, a rule I had broken many times before this event. That entire evening I didn’t say anything to my grandma because she scared me to the death but when my mother picked me up that evening, I walked to the front door to leave and I turned around and said to my grandma “ Grandma, did you really mean EVERY hair on my head?”. She loves loves LOVES this story. I cant tell you how many times she tells everyone.

My hopes
The best thing that could happen to me is that I can look back one day on my life and say that I was happy with the career I have chosen, and happy with the man that I choose to be my husband, and that I did everything I want to do and saw every place that I wanted to see. I don’t want to regret anything in life and I think accomplishing that would be a great feeling.

Blog #2

“My Father Always Said”

Schwartz uses 6 sections to deliver her story:

In Segment #1: She speaks about the New York environment that she lives in and her life as a teen in America. She wants to do everything an average teenage girl would want to do like hang out with her friends and wear make up. Just as similar, she has a father who doesn’t agree with some of the things she does.

Segment #2: This part is where she sees her father’s past and is surprised by what she was brought to see. First, she comes to the realization, through the environment around her, that her father was hick. Also, she finds out about how her father had a commitment to a synagogue every Friday and couldn’t imagine not being able to hang out with her friends. This is when she begins to understand her father a little more and the importance of going to the temple.

Segment #3: This part is where she is finding more of an interest level in her father’s life. She is told the story about how the Germans burnt down the synagogues and understands why her father is so weary to let her hang out with strangers and people that are not family. Later, on her trip to Rindheim she is surprised to see that the building that was once a synagogue is a now a Protestant church and comes to the realization that as time goes on; elements of life are constantly changing.

Segment #4: This part is where she is introduced to her father’s school. Her interest level grows when she is taught about the school system her father once had to go through, where children were separated because of their religion. She starts to understand how unjust his childhood was

Segment #5: They visit the cemetery to see the graves of some of her family members. Here, Mimi participates in honoring her relatives by placing a stone on one of her family member’s grave. She is not only maturing, at this point, but is appreciating the heritage more

Segment #6: In this segment she is at the cemetery and listens to her father tell a story about Tante Rosa, who stayed in Germany and was eventually sent to a concentration camp. He is distraught by this memory and she begins to really understand the hard times her parents had to face. While at the cemetery, she also visits the graves of her grandparents and tries to envision what they would have been like. She realizes the choice her father made in coming to America was to not only escape danger but give his children a better life to live, which gives her a better understanding of why family is so important to him.

In today’s society, its hard to truly be on the same page as your parents since we are completely different generations but by finding out aspects of their past is a way to not only better understand them but a way to see all of the obstacles they had to face when they were our age. I enjoyed this story and hope to gain an insight into the lives of my parents as Mimi did.

Draft

Lean on Me


It happened so suddenly. I woke up in the middle of the night and suddenly I couldn’t swallow. I woke up my boyfriend in panic and needed him to get me water. I needed water but suddenly water wasn’t enough. I needed my mother. I called her and couldn’t help but cry as my voice quivered the word Mom. We met at the hospital at 2 in the morning and after talking to a series of doctors who couldn’t figure my symptoms out it was my mother that realized what had happened. I was hit with an anxiety attack.
That next morning, after the hospital, I went home and had my mother stay by my side. She held my hand through my shaking, wiped my tears after my crying and made me forget how bad I really was. She is like that security blanket that toddlers carry around, the one that for some reason they cry when they are without it because it’s that one thing makes them feel safe. When my mother had to leave for work and I was all alone, is when the anxiety escalated. I suddenly wasn’t an independent college girl that could do anything by herself but rather became someone who couldn’t be left alone.

Finally after a week I was in my apartment again but every night after work my mother drove 40 minutes and came over to stay with me until my boyfriend came home at 9. For that week she focused on me. She called every hour and constantly made sure I was ok. One day I felt like my throat was closing and even though she told me it was because of my anxiety and nothing more she still took me to a throat specialist to make me feel better. She never made me feel embarassed or crazy because she herself went through anixety. Those nights she came up to stay with me, we would lay in my bed listening to soft music, and as she held my hand she would retell me stories about when I was a little girl. Those small moments are the times I will never forget and the times I could never really explain to her how much they really meant. That week she temporarily deserted my father and younger sister and I am sure she neglected herself as well because I was the only thing that she was concerned about and I needed that. I needed her to pick me up a little each day and a little more each time we were together. She is the reason I am the Erica that makes everyone laugh or the Erica that loves to give gifts or the Erica that is a happy young girl again.

Recently, our roles have switched. My parents are struggling financially more than ever and can’t afford to keep the house so it has been on the market for the past months. Since my father lost his job and my mother is only a secretary, they can barely afford to live anymore and I find that the strong woman who once got me through everything is now falling apart. She is depressed and cries almost every time I talk to her. She prided herself on being able to do things on her own and because she now needs help to get by she is not herself. She calls me everyday and tells me about how she is feeling and I am there to listen and build her slowly up as she has done for me. Sometimes I cry when I get off the phone with her because hearing that the one person you want to be happy is actually the saddest they have ever been is heartbreaking. I don’t cry when I’m around her or even show that I believe things are bad because she never once did that when I was going through my bad time. She always made me feel that the bad times were going to pass and I was going to get better without a doubt and that is exactly what I am doing today. She is more than a mother and I am more than a daughter to her. We are best friends and each others support system.

To get my mother through her hard times, I call her everyday to let her know that I am thinking about her and I make sure I tell her something that will brighten up her day. I drive home atleast twice a week just to clean to house for her and make sure we have lunch on fridays to catch up. I always let her know that I am here for her and that her problems are not too much for me too carry and little by little she has been opening up. When I give her a hug, its the strongest hug my arms can give and when I tell her I love her, its the most heart felt expression I can give.

The weeks that I suffered with my anxiety was a time I will never forget because I became the weakest I ever thought I would possibly be but also because I realized what a strong and loving woman my mother is. When I was at my weakest I couldn’t help myself but needed my mother to get me to where I needed to be, and now being able to do the same is the most important role in my life right now. My mother and I have shared many memories in the past but now we both share that horrible feeling that nothing is ever going to get better, but I am by her side everyday telling her that although we cant see it at the moment, it’s a time in our lives that we eventually grow from and realize the strength we have because of what we have overcome. I pray every night for the times my mother is facing to end soon but in the mean time I am standing as strong as my mother once did, and for that I couldn’t be happier.