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Shelbey Sparrow
Professor Robert Arnold
UWRT 1101-073
11 September 2015
Personal Literacy Narrative
Since my parents were officially divorced by the time I was two, I struggled with the idea
of love for a very long time. How could two people think they loved each other enough to
conceive a child only to be broken up within a year? It didnt make sense and the struggle of this
concept haunted me for a quite some time. It wasnt until August 21, 2015, Move-in day, that I
felt like I had truly mastered the concept and ideas of love. As I stood in my new room in
Hawthorn hall and kissed my mom, dad, step mom, and grandparents goodbye I realized that
love is expressed in all different ways and that I was literate in so many different kinds of love.
Learning to love my mom, dad, step mom, and grandparents, or my 5 parental units, all
differently was quite a challenge. Each of them have different love languages and express and
feel love differently. My mom, for example, has to take care of people in order to express her
love. She likes to know everything thats going on and how I feel about every situation Im in. As
Im sure you understand, this is an annoying trait to most teenagers. I did not have the desire to
tell my mom everything about what was going on and would often reply with snippy remarks
such as Its none of your business quit asking. I did this for quite a few years until one time I
went a little too far and she burst into tears. She looked at me and said all I care about is that
you are being taken care of and being treated as the wonderful person that you are. At that
moment, I realized that thats what she needed for her to feel love from me. She needed me to
tell her about things so she felt like I wanted her involved. So from then on, in order to express
love to my mother I had to keep her involved. I found it easier to just go ahead and tell her

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whats going on instead of making her ask. She seemed to be a lot more content with our
relationship after I started sharing things with her, even if it was just the little things, such as me
not being confident about the calculus test I had taken or what I had for lunch.
My dad on the other hand, does not show emotion on a normal basis in any way, whether
it be love, hate or just happiness. It took me up until I was 10 to think he even had emotions. One
night about 8 years ago, my dad and step mom got into a huge argument and she packed up some
of her stuff and left. I, being very close with my step mom at the time, was very distraught. I sat
on my bed and cried thinking she was never going to come back. At one point, my dad came in
to check on me and I recall throwing a stuffed animal at him and screaming that it was his fault
she was gone. He didnt take this as I thought he would, expecting him to just shrug it off and not
care. He walked further into my room sat on my bed and burst into tears. Feeling awful about the
situation, I crawled over next to him and hugged him then apologized. Through his tears, he
whispered I might have just lost my second favorite girl, I dont need to lose my first favorite
also. This coming from a man who doesnt even say love you at the end of a phone
conversation, completely and utterly broke me. From then on out I had a solid understanding of
my dads emotions. They did exist. Just not in the way that most peoples did. My dad didnt need
much to feel loved and appreciated, but when dramatic things happened he needed a little pat on
the back, and not a shove in the wrong direction like I had given him that night. Now, my dad
and step mom have two beautiful kids and Ive still never seen him cry like that, not even on the
day of their birth.
With both my parents I had an enlightening moment that made me realize what I needed
to do to make them feel loved at all times. My step mom was a different story. We had a great
relationship until my freshman year of high school. My dad and step mom had asked how I felt

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about going to live with them, and doing what any freshman girl would do I chose to stay at that
high school I was already at and continue to live with my mom. Even though they had asked for
my opinion, they chose to take my mom to court for custody anyway. I was very upset and felt
completely betrayed. Up until this point I would have heart-to-heart conversations with my step
mom whenever I was feeling down or had gotten into an argument with my mother. This all back
fired when we got to court, because everything I had confided in her was used against me. The
entire time I was in court I was thinking that I didnt want to hurt anyones feelings, but in order
to do what I wanted, I had to. In the end I got what I wanted and was able to stay with my mom,
but my relationship with my step mom was completely in shambles. We didnt even utter hellos
when we saw each other. It took me a long time to realize that my step mom was doing what she
felt was right for me and not just being evil. She was expressing her love for me by doing what
she felt was necessary to protect me even if it hurt my feelings. This made me literate in another
aspect of love, tough love. I now have to use this with my little siblings all the time. Even if itll
make them upset, I must pull them away from sticking their finger in the electrical socket to keep
them safe. My step mom was trying to pull me away from what she thought was dangerous.
Finally one of my last sponsors of my love literacy is my grandparents. Theyve showed
me what unconditional love is for a significant other. Theyve never been incredibly showy with
their public affection, but about a month ago I was packing for college and they both just
disappeared. I finished what I was doing and went downstairs to look for them, and what I came
to find was heartbreaking and uplifting all in one. My grandma was laying on her bed pale white
and looking sickly and my grandfather was tearing up while holding a towel to her head. Later I
asked my grandpa what had happened and he said that she suddenly fell faint and needed to rest.
I brought up how upset he looked and with tears in his eyes he said I couldnt imagine my life

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without her and taking care of her like that made me realize how quickly she could fall ill. This
showed me how unconditional their love was and taught me what its like to love someone in
that way.
Even though all of these people taught me love in their various ways, they dont agree
with each other in any way what so ever. However, they all agreed to help me move in to my
dorm together. This was an odd situation and put me in a lot of rough spots throughout the day. I
was trying to listen to everyones input and make everyone happy. Eventually when I finally
finished they were all standing around and chit chatting to one another about me and everything
Ive done. Each one of them with a smile on their faces and proud words coming out of their
mouths. I looked back at all of them and noticed that they had all put their differences aside to
help me celebrate an important milestone in my life, because they loved me.
Over the course of my life Ive learned people love differently and show it differently and
that you have to adjust to each person to show love the way that they prefer, and growing up
around all different types of love has made me have a very diverse way of love and interesting
path to my love literacy. I now show and receive love in many different ways. I have tendency to
not show emotion at all, to just want to know everything and be involved, and even show tough
love, but I have also developed my own personal type of love that is individual to me. I choose to
show love by going above and beyond for the people that I care about, and I enjoy nothing more
than when they do the same for me. I believe that love should be shown somehow in everything
you do. With my parental units being my sponsors of literacy, I learned various types of love,
and how I like to show it a long with the joys and heartbreaks that come along with love.
Becoming literate in love is a hard path that has many ups and downs but is something that
everyone should do eventually.

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