Angela's Ashes

During my childhood I never had the opportunity to write as I spent most of my younger years acting as the man of the household since my father went to England when I was a boy or even just trying to survive day to day. I write now for the opportunity to express what I never got to tell anyone for fear of either being thumped so hard on the head I flew into the wall or having the door of the church slammed in my face once again and this time for good. I write not for the sake of earning money for I have lived so long so deeply in poverty that I am used to how it feels to have nothing. I have written many threatening letters before as a way to earn enough to make ends meet for my family in the absence of my father and I no longer wish to use my writing for that same purpose. The only thing I ask for now is for the story of my family but most especially my mother and I to be heard. My mother must have gone through the hardest time of us all while we were growing up and God bless her even though I know about how she sinned those nights at Laman Griffin's loft and never confessed them to the priest. By my writing maybe I can take that burden of sin from her so it does not remain inside her for the rest of her life going untold. I also write for her to express the years of pain and suffering she faced with her family disappearing before her very eyes with my father drinking the dole money and then leaving us for England never to send a shilling home. Her only daughter's life taken from her before her baptism, her twin boys succumbing to the pneumonia, her husband and her son off to the army, and her oldest boy out of school and off to work before leaving to America. I write for her to tell her all these things that I kept in my head for so long as a boy and to let her know that I understand her suffering. I never showed her this before as a boy because it was at that time in my life when I needed to be the strongest and scrape together a living for myself and for her and for my younger brothers. I write because I never had the heart to complain then. Yes my life was miserable in Limerick and yes I was faced with eye disease and sin and poverty for many years. But I had more than some of my siblings got to have. I was alive and had more potential to move up in the world than anyone else including my mother and father. I write now because I am grateful for where I ended up after leaving behind what I lived with in Ireland. I write now because for the first time in my life, I can.