Life Without Dad

My essay is going to be a personal essay; the purpose being to try to help young children cope with loss at an early age. I am not going to deceive the reader by letting them think it was all rosy growing up because it wasn’t, but I believe I will be able to capture the reader’s attention from the first few words because of the way I introduce them to my family and me at a young age. The death of a loved one, at any early can be devastating, but my essay can be used as a tool to help parent’s explain it to their young child.

I. Introduction

A. Personal loss

B. My feelings after my dad’s death

C. How I have grown into the woman I am today because of my mom

Although I did not have a normal childhood after the death of my father, I do have some memorable images of him and what my life would be like as I grew older had he been around. I would like to tell you about some of my memories and how they affected me as I got older and how his death affected me as a young child, as a teen and even today as a senior citizen. My dad died when I was nine, but I am going to take you back to the last thing I can recall; being two years old and living in Alaska while my dad was stationed at Elmendorf Air Force Base (AFB). I was in awe of this man; even at the age of two and I loved it when he put his uniform on, his back straight and how he would salute me when he walked out of our door to go to the base.