Reconstructing My Father Essay -- Personal Narrative, essay about myse

Reconstructing My Father   Most of the memories I have of my father atomic number 18 bad. He was a withdrawn binge alcoholic, sometimes given to red-faced episodes in which he forciblely assaulted my mother. He never took us anywhere, and he r arly spoke to us, although sometimes, late at night, he would play card with me or we would watch an old movie together. He loved Barbara Stanwyck.   When I was a small child, Eddie (his actual name, though his relatives called him Lec) did help me with my school projects. A k promptlyledgeable kayoeddoors earthly concern, he taught me the names of all of the trees, took me fishing in a boat he built himself, and showed me how to till the worm bed in the back yard. But as I grew older, my needs changed. If my car stone-broke down, I needed a ride. If there was a special rouse or project at school, I needed money. He non plainly refused to help me with these things, but he refused belligerently, which led to to a greater extent fights with my mother.   My fathers agone was somewhat of a mystery. I knew hed grown up in northwestern United States Louisiana, that he had a brother who had died and two sisters, and that he had served in the army during World War II. His father died before I was old tolerable to meet him, possibly before I was born, and his mother, who lived with us for a outline period, was a bloodless, stone-faced woman who was frightening in her lack of warmth. I apothegm one of my aunts only once or twice, and the other one was so grim that I preferred to avoid her.   When I was twenty- quartet, an aneurysm bring out in Eddies brain he was in a coma for trinity days, and then he died. He was sixty-two, and at the time of his death, had more physical strength than some men half his age.   I have often wanted to fill in ... ...ngineers to have the railroad leading from St. Lo into Le Mans and Laval, ready to receive ammunition trains -- on August 15. The men had to r edo seven railway bridges, repair and lay new main lines in three marshalling yards, lay miles of track, and provide service and water facilities along the lines. They did it.   The engineers heap go under, over or through anything, or get it out of the way, the pamphlet states. That is a phrase that certainly suits my father, a tough, stubborn man who could build and who could destroy. I wish he were alive because there are a lot of things I would like to tell him, and even more that I would like to ask him. But at least now I have a better idea not only of who he was, but who he might have been. The Eddie who has emerged since my mothers death four years ago is still a shadow, but I can at least see his outline.