Lydia's Essay 19

Lydia Schulz

Mr. H. Salsich

9 English

11 May, 2009

A Painful Goodbye:

An Essay on Two Poems, Parting, and My Life

        Sometimes, you have to part from someone, even though you know it will hurt you. And sometimes, someone else leaves you and never comes back; they simply disappear (Appositive). Are these the correct ways to part with someone, and if not, what is the proper way? This is a question that comes up in my own life more and more as we near graduation, and can be answered in the poems “Adios” by Naomi Shihab Nye and “My Life Closed Twice” by Emily Dickinson.
        In the poem “My Life Closed Twice,” by Emily Dickinson, the concept of parting is discussed particularly in the last two lines. The poem says, “parting is all we know of heaven, / and all we need of hell.” When you are in a theoretical hell, all you want is to get away from it. Parting from this ghastly state of mind is “all [you] need of hell.” But when everything is going well and you find yourself in “heaven,” you may never want to leave. This perfect place, this nirvana is all you have ever wanted. However, it is inevitable that you will have to leave this paradise and come back to the real world, a change that will not go unnoticed. This parting is all we notice of heaven, and it is this very severance(FAST) that we crave from hell.
        Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem is all about one word, which happens to be the name of the poem: “Adios.” As many people know, “adios” means “goodbye” in Spanish. We often associate this word with parting or saying goodbye to someone. In Ms. Nye’s poem about the word “adios,” she is saying that all the feelings of parting can be summed up in one five-letter word. About two-thirds of the way into the poem, Ms. Nye tells us to “think of things that disappear.” Ms. Nye is referring to a person who left, saying they would return, but they never did. Someone who promised to come back and to pick up where they left off, but they never did. They disappeared, never to be seen again.
        All year, I have feared the “parting” of our class, some of my best friends. When I think of the history we have with each other, it seems impossible that anyone could understand our bonds. As first graders, we were oblivious to the separation that lay before us, running around the playground, chatting happily about baby-bottle pops and pretzel sticks, and arguing over whose turn it was to use the space trolleys (Loose Sentence). Now, as middle schoolers, we race to touch our noses as a way to avoid cleaning the lunch table, throw together last-minute skits for language classes, and traipse (FAST) down the hallways, completely aware of the fact that we are indeed the rulers of the school. Next year, all this will change. We will of course have new friends to laugh and talk with, but the friendships will not be the same. We will have no one to reminisce with, no one to plot ridiculous student government campaigns with, and no one to joke with about how funny it would be if we stole the boys’ pants. I am dreading the day I have to say goodbye to the class of 2009 and leave Pine Point for good. I know I will have a blast next year at my new school, but my memories of Pine Point will always be tainted with some sadness. Our class, so strong and accepting, will never be one unit again (Periodic Sentence). There can be no doubt that after parting, the bonds of our class will not be the same.
        Perhaps parting does not have to be something sad. We can learn to take it in our stride and use it to make us stronger while still staying in touch with the ones we have left. In the coming years, I hope to stay close with the class of 2009, even after we have gone our separate ways. Our class is one of the closest, and we cannot let ourselves grow farther apart as a result of our new schools next year. We cannot and will not let our bonds break.

-Transitions-

-Special Tools-

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Self Assessment:

1. I like the purposeful repetition I used in this essay. I think it helped the writing to flow and to more clearly define the chunks. I also thought my FAST words were particularly good.

2. I didn't do a great job with the transitions. It was difficult for me to decide what qualified as a transitional phrase, and because of this, I think I may have missed a few.

Grade: B+