E-learning Week

For Week 8, our faculty was part of the E-Learning program that the university was conducting. This meant that we could be at any part of the world and still participate in class as long as we logged into Spectrum during the class hours. Amazing, isn't it?

For this week, we were given the task to read a letter from a child to their parents, where they express their gratefulness to their parents after having babysat their kid sister.

After that, we had to write a letter where the roles were reversed, meaning now I had to play the part of the mother or father writing to their child. This was an interesting assignment because it asked me to write from the perspective of a parent, which I rarely think about.

This was a new style of writing, known as a narrative essay. A narrative essay tells the incidents that occur as though it has been narrated by someone, usually using the personal pronoun 'I'.

I wrote about a mother writing a letter to her son, whom she had given up after he was born. In the letter, she explains how she had had a tough life and it was only because she could not afford to raise her son that she finally decided to give him away. She also hopes that when her son reads this, he will try to forgive her for doing what she did.

We were also asked to read up on the rest of the class' letters and I found them all so wonderful. Each letter was written in its own way which I thought was amazing.

Before i go, here is a sample of the essay that I had written:

To my dearest son,

I hope that by the time you read this letter, you will have a family who looks after you and loves you the way I never could. I am writing this so you may at least understand why I had to give you away and how it was the hardest decision that I have ever made in my life. I know you might be feeling anger or frustration towards me and I want you to know that your feelings are perfectly understandable. I just hope that you can find it in your heart to read the contents of this letter and not judge me too harshly for my actions.

Let me start off with the beginning of the end. I was seventeen when I met your biological father; we were both in high school and just a few months away from graduating. We were in love, and we were the type of lovers that stirred jealousy in the hearts of anyone who was watching. “Look at them,” people would say. “They have the kind of love that lasts forever.” On graduation day, he got down on his knees and proposed in front of everyone! Imagine my shock that turned quickly into excitement and as I screamed ‘yes’ into the air, I did not think I had ever been happier in my life. That is-until you arrived. But we shall get to that later.

Accepting your father’s proposal was the easy part. The harder part was getting our parents to agree, which ended on a rather bad note. His father was a drunkard and his mother often fell victim to his drunken rages- and my parents who believed themselves to be more respectable than that could not accept your father into my family. So we left to start our own family. We were happy for a while but you must understand that life can turn horrible so fast, especially when you have no support from your family. In a few months, we were struggling to pay the rent and were desperate for money. And it was during those hard months did I find out about you. When I told your father I was pregnant, he was over the moon! Though our situation had become difficult, we promised that we would do whatever it took to raise you in a good home.

So we began to work day and night shifts, and we had become so focused in saving money that we forgot to speak to each other. We began to drift apart, only greeting one another when we came home from work before slumping into bed and falling asleep. One night, it had been a tiring day at the office and my pregnancy certainly did not help my condition. Your father and I got into a vicious argument and we hurt each other with the only weapon we had; words. In anger, I told him that he was no different from his own father and I watched the light in his eyes die out. He took the car keys and stormed out of the house in the middle of the night.

I wish I could say that I ran after him, and that I took his hand in mine and convinced him to come back. I wish that I’d apologized and waited there until he accepted it but most of all, I wish I had never let him go in the first place. But you see, the truth is, I let him go. I watched him grab the car keys from the counter and walk out the door. Your father never came home that night. The next day, I got a call from the hospital saying that my husband had been in an accident.

Your father went into a coma and I used up every last penny we had to try and save him. I practically lived in the streets because all our money was used to pay the hospital bills. I began to lose myself and I was so frightened that I would lose you too. I walked past a house constantly on the way to see your father-a lovely woman lived there but she was very lonely. She was rich and beautiful and kind- the mother every child deserved. The mother you deserved.

My son, you must understand, your father was not coming back. And I had no means of supporting either one of us alone. No one would give a heavily pregnant woman a job and there were times when I starved myself to get through the day.

When the day came when you had to be delivered, it was truly the happiest moment of my life. I felt as though someone had breathed life back into my lungs and for a single moment, I thought we were going to be okay. As I held you in my arms, I realized that I could never give you a good life. I could never shower you with gifts or keep you happy like I had dreamed. So I made the decision to give you away and let me tell you, it ripped my soul and heart to do so. I remember how you cried when I wrapped you in that little blanket and placed you into a basket. I remember how the cold air stung as I made my way to the doorstep of the big white house that is surely your home now. I remember how every cell in my body was screaming and begging me not to give you up. But I had to. I had to let you go because I loved you so much and wanted you to have a good future.

I am ending this letter now because I cannot bear the memories that have once again opened up the wound in my heart. I am still alive and well, if you care to know, and please know that I am always thinking of you every second. It may not mean much to you but I love you and I always will.

Goodbye.