A Journal For American Dana Canedy Analysis

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Growing up without a father is hard. It’s hard whether you are black or white, a boy or a girl, rich or poor, and whether you never knew your father or if he left your family in the middle of the night. Sadly, I have first hand experience with this. When I was about six years old my father was taken away from my family and I by a case of Prostate Cancer that was left untreated until it was too late. I didn’t know my father that well since he didn’t live with us, but I’m sure the pain I felt was just as bad as any child that lost their father. When I read the story, A Journal For Jordan by Dana Canedy, it reminded me of the loss of my father and I felt as if I could relate to how Jordan will feel when he grows older and understands what it means…show more content…
The death of a parent could possibly be the most traumatizing event during a child’s life. “The death of a parent is a shattering event for a child….it stuns, shocks, bewilders, overwhelms, and frightens the child” (Parry & Thornwall, 1992, p. 126). It can cause cognitive difficulties, denial, depression, fear that remaining parent may die, feelings of abandonment, guilt, and inability to trust (Becvar). I didn’t express all of these symptoms but a lot of them I have felt at sometime during my life. When my father died I was too young to grasp the concept of death, so it didn’t effect me mentally until I was around ten. Before then I was very talkative, friendly, and open; afterwards I didn’t like conversing with people, I became very angry with everyone, and it became harder to show emotions like sadness and affection. Now that I’m older I can control my emotions much better but It’s still hard for me to trust people, even my family members. Even though Jordan was an infant when his father died, he will most likely display some of these symptoms as he ages. Many people don’t know that children grieve just as well as a teenager or an adult might. The symptoms will normally arise around the age of nine or ten, when a child can understand death and notice that their peers may have the father or mother that they don’t have themselves. Many people don’t know that children grieve just as well as a teenager or an adult might, but they do, It’s just goes unnoticed until their older when they can finally express their feelings in a well enough way to be interpreted as

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