Born February 20, 2008 to two teenage parents, my son Alejandro Luis Powell is gradually becoming a reflection of a young me. He has a different life than me, different circumstances. But he has the same silly attitude and optimism that I have found to be useful in getting me through the toughest spots in my own life. Even though he is young, I know he’ll be strong. He doesn’t even know it yet, but he’s strengthened our family in the toughest times
Project 2 freewrite
I think I’ll do this project on my son, because he’s one of the biggest players in my homecoming tradition. Every time I come home he’s a little bigger, and always very excited. Thing is, though, he might be difficult to interview (he is 4, 5 next month). When I left for boot camp he was just a liitle baby, only about 18 months old. Maybe he didn’t get that I was going or miss me, but I missed him. Then when I saw him at graduation, he was SO big and he did remember me. It was such an amazing feeling to see him say Daddy and run to me, to hold him in my arms again. I leave for a week or a few every now and then for extra training, it’s all he’s ever known that I’m not home on a regular schedule, or at least not for very long. When I left for my first deployment, I think he was starting to get that there was going to be a major change in how our family worked. At first I moved out of our apartment and into my rack on the ship. We saw each other less and less before I depolyed, and there was a lot of stress and emotion between my wife and I because of all the preparations. They moved back to New Mexico with my wife’s parents and she said he talked about me a lot and asked where I was. It’s difficult to explain to your kid that you’re going to be across the world for 7 months but that it’s not because you don’t want to be with him. My wife showed him my picture every day and they had this big paper chain that wrapped around her room, a link for every day I was supposed to be gone.They made it part of the bedtime routine that he would rip up one peice right before laying down, thus the chain grew horter and shorter. Finally when they came and got me at the airfeild we ripped up the very last link. Ten minutes up! I can see that I need to elaborate more on the little guy’s life itself instead of his reactions to my being gone all the time. Right? What do you think?
Grows up so much every time I leave, Deployments/ boot camps, was 18 months old when Ileft for bootcamp, was 3 1/2 when I deployed, will be 5 next month (I’ve been gone a month now)
Keeps his silly/ happy attitude even through the rough times, His excitement at my homecoming is one of the most rewarding things, He’s really hard to bring down, and I admire that, kept my wife happy and busy each time I left
Circumstances of his birth/ life (birth certificate says father 17, mother 16), What he likes (cars, trucks, my little pony, karate), What he’s doing now (karate, preschool next week)
dapowel3 