Danisha Larson Draft 2c: Photo Reflection English 1010: 2nd hour Walking Down the Aisle My mother

is the beautiful 18-year old woman in this photo. Walking down the aisle toward what she thought to be the beginning of her destiny. While I look at this picture, I try to interpret the look she has on her face. Now that I have lived with my mom for more than 17 years, it seems that I would be able to almost read her mind through the face expressions she gives. The look I see on her face is that of a child, innocent and nave. It is the face so familiar to me when she blurts an absent minded comment or makes a meaningless joke. It makes me wonder if she realized the seriousness of the step she was about to make. I am now 17, turning 18 in June; the same age as my mother when she got married. I am in her same shoes a couple months earlier than she was, a couple years too early for my parents. Everyone has always said that I have matured so much, that I have a great future ahead of me, and that they know I will succeed and make the right choices. These comments tend to bring a feeling of accomplishment about my heart until I wonder and ask: wait, then why dont my parents let me make my own choices? Am I not almost a legal adult? But I have been able to understand why according to their experiences made by poor choices which have occurred within my life time. My mom and dad have been divorced for about 3 years. My dad didnt want to end it, but my mom couldnt take it. Within a year of their separation, both had already found another to fill

the unoccupied position which completed their parent partnership. My mom was the first to get married to the first person she dated after divorcing my dad. My dad dated many others until he thought he had found the girl of his dreams. He then evaluated which was most like him, which liked him most for who he was and how each interacted with her children and his children. My mom now is having issues concerning her marriage and my dad marriage is moving along quite well considering the amount of time they have lived together and the hard trials they have already fought through. The results of these two marriages, is not coincidental and this picture foreshadows it. My mom is afraid that I will make the same mistakes she did. My moms afraid that I will take that first step to my doom instead of destiny; so I am condemned to the opposite of what she had (which is the freedom to choose). It seems to me that I am being forced to live the life she would have chosen to live if she were to go back and correct what she so unwisely chose to do. What she has yet to realize is the cause of those marriage issues. Perhaps her partners were not at fault but it was in fact her; the resulting factor of giving up which occurred because of her lack of self-discipline towards patients. Patients is the key to team work when solving any problem. It produces a feeling which enables one to become humble. By opening ones mind to what the opinions of the other person are. If she continues to let her pride blind her from this truth behind her failed/failing marriages, she will only continue to re-live her mistakes and cause everyone around her to suffer the consequences. These thoughts of my mother seem to engulf my mind as I look back at this picture of her. Im amazed at how much of some ones character can be revealed by capturing a moment,

not even consisting of a split second, from their whole life span. It is a little strange and quite shocking when I noticed that her appearance had not changed from 18 years ago; that her same expression then reveals the same truth as they do now. When I look at her today I can still see that young woman, innocent and nave, struggling to obtain sight to where destinies aisle lays.