Slice of Life: March 16

I played with a pantoum today. Thank you Elisa for the inspiration to try this poetic form. I chose a day that brings up a lot of emotions. Trigger warning: I am writing about the day my dad died. I was 14.

I haven’t actually been able to write much about it before. I like the fact that the poetry form helped me approach this subject. This is a draft, but it was a very interesting experiment in figuring out which details to highlight. Here it is:

July 2nd, 1991
Call 911, Oh my God!
They asked me, “Is he conscious? Is he breathing?”
He didn’t make it, he’s gone to heaven.

Call 911, Oh my God!
My mom screamed in panic
He didn’t make it, he’s gone to heaven
Those words are seared into my memory

My mom screamed in panic
Hysterical screaming, demanding that he “BREATHE”
Those words are seared into my memory
My life changed forever that day.

Hysterical screaming, demanding that he “BREATHE”
They asked me, “Is he conscious? Is he breathing?”
My life changed forever that day
July 2nd, 1991

This post is a part of the 14th annual Slice of Life Story Challenge. After a few years away, I am challenging myself to write every day in March this year, along with an amazing community of other bloggers. You can find our writing linked up on the Two Writing Teachers blog.

Author: Andrea

I am an instructional technology coach in a middle school in Milwaukee, WI. I have been teaching for over 20 years in many grade levels ranging from first through eighth grade. I am a lifelong book nerd.

3 thoughts on “Slice of Life: March 16”

  1. Wow. This is such a powerful piece. The format of the poem feels so perfect for this topic. It’s an amazing poem.

  2. Andrea, this is a very powerful piece with sadness and hope and anguish rolled into one. I felt, sadly, like I was with you that day your life changed. I hope finding a way to put it on paper is helping.

  3. Even though it has been years since this happened, I hope that writing about it has given you some peace. That must have been very scary at that age. I really need to look at this form a little more. When I first looked at it, I read it quickly and thought – oh this is too hard. But now I have seen several and it doesn’t look quite so daunting.

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