My response to "My Father's Sketchbook"

This narrative for me was extremely moving as I could sympathize with the little girl who by reading a couple of sentences realized that her dad wasn’t the invincible character she thought he was. I had this epiphany when I first witnessed my father crying. My grandmother had terminal cancer so it was imminent that she was going to die so it was a very emotional time. I will never forget when my dad got the dreaded news. I could tell in his eyes that he wanted to cry, but he was fighting them back as the rest of the family was in the room. That was the first time I had ever seen vulnerability in him, and after that, like the girl, I always made more of an effort to help my dad out, be it helping out around the house or just asking him how his day was. Having read the passage, it made me realize that you can become extremely self-involved with what’s going on in your life. For example, when you get home from school and your mum asks, “How was your day?” and you reply with “fine”, that must be quite soul destroying for her. I remember I used to do this all the time as when you get home your exhausted and all you want to do is go upstairs and chill out. However this narrative has made me realize that it’s important to make your parents feel like you care, and it was funny because after reading My Father’s Sketchbook, I picked up my phone and rang home.