Jenny Lynn DAY 1 Flashcards
6 Paragraphs
Beginning Father Choice Sick Worse Worst
Beginning
The waves were like horses, rearing up before crashing down onto the beach, pounding the sand with their white foam hooves. Nova Scotia had been the home of Mother’s family for years. My mother, Sofia loved her home, she loved the horseshoe harbour and the wharf that she said was it’s heart. My father, William was from Montreal, he was used to the city life, not the fishing life but he loved Mother so he came to live here where he got used to the salty sea spray.
Father Part 1
Everyday I walked home from school listening to the crash of waves. Our front door opened into the oblong kitchen where Mother and often my older brother who, a lobster fisherman would be sitting down beside the heavy wooden table where we ate dinner. “We didn’t get many today.” He often said in his rough gravelly voice.
If Father was home I would rush straight to his study where he would be sitting at his small brown desk with maps littering the surface. He loved travelling and was always planning where his next trip, Mother never went with him, she loved home too much.
Father Part 2
“Hi Father.”
He would look up at me smiling and say “Hello ma fille”, French for ‘my daughter’.
“Where are you off to this time.” I would ask excitedly.
I knew that as soon as I finished school I would go with father on his adventures. My father went to many places but there’s one place I won’t forget.
“New York, oh and I have something for you”. He passed me a book on New York.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I said to him as I excitedly snatched the heavy paperback from his hands. I loved to read about where father was, it made me feel like I was almost there with him.
Choice Part 1
There was one problem with my dream of travelling. Mother.
“You have a choice to make that will affect who you become.” She once told me in a firm but loving voice. “Spend your life travelling, I won’t stop you. Or stay here and support this family. Only you can decide.”
She had spent most of her life repairing my brother’s clothes that he wore fishing or preparing meals for him to eat when he was “far out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower” as she would say.
Choice Part 2
She wanted me to marry a local boy, repair his clothes and prepare his food when he was fishing. I didn’t want that though, I wanted to experience the world like my father. It wasn’t that I didn’t like home. I liked feeling the blow of the winds and watching the fog cover the harbour like a blanket of white. But home would always be there for me.
Sick Part 1
Things got bad though. Mother got sick. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. I didn’t know what it meant either, but it makes breathing hard. We just thought mother had a bad cough but then breathing became difficult and even simple tasks exhausted her. Father kept travelling so it was often left to me and my siblings to help. Mother was so stubborn though, “I’m not dying yet” she would say but she was in pain. Coming home from school, I would no longer see her looking out the window to the sea, instead I would find her laying in bed.
Sick Part 2
My father began to spend more time away from home. And when he was home he just argued with Mother. You could hear the muffled shouts coming from his study. I understood him though, I understood that he wanted time where he could leave his life behind to let the spirit of new worlds attract and move him. I think I was the only reason he came home at all, so he could share his stories with me.
Worse
It only got worse. Lobster season ended and it was a bad season. My brother dedicated himself to helping mother with her treatment but treatment cost money and with the season as bad as it was, he wasn’t able to make much of it. He tried but there wasn’t much he could do. He wasn’t the lively, energetic and happy man he once was. Everything that happened drained his energy like a leech drains blood. Worst of all was that Mother seemed to only get worse.
Worst
The worst thing that happened to Mother though was when my father returned from his third consecutive trip to New York. He kept going back because he was trying to obtain revolutionary medicine for Mother that could only be found there, or so we thought. I won’t forget that night. I was looking for Mother. I walked to the kitchen, she wasn’t there, then her bedroom, she
