Throughout my youth, I was exposed to many events that shaped me to become the man I am today. Though some of these events were far from pleasant, something good always came out of them in the long run. I might have not realized what they taught me at that very moment in time, but when I look back on my life I realize that it made an impact on me somewhere down the road. Sometimes I ask myself whether or not I would always use these lessons to my advantage; maybe I would ignore that it happened, or do the one thing I wasn't supposed to do in the given situation. In Angela's Ashes you, the reader, were given the opportunity to read about the lessons I've gotten from a situation, and so I'm asking; have I ever taken those lessons for granted?

Malachy McCourt was always looked down upon as an eejit from the North. Even though he drank and never supported us, I looked up to him in my early childhood. He was the one who told me stories and managed to cheer me up when I was in the worst moods. He was a good man, despite his mistakes my father managed to show me sides of him that sometimes made me forget about how he's a drunk failure. When my sister Margaret was born, we all saw a side of my father that we were never exposed to. Throughout my sister's short life, never did my father touch alcohol, he was devoted to being a good father and that took priority over the pubs. He brought home the wages and went back to making sure everyone was fed and happy. Even though I will never forgive him for what he did to our family, I won't ever forget the day my father turned into a good man; even if it was just for a little while. It made me realize that my father too, was human. Capable of feeling such compassion for a person that it changes him. Margaret was somehow his wake-up call, that made him realize that he needs to keep his life, and his family together at any cost. Which brings me to the question: Was my father truly a good man at heart?

Living a life in poverty meant not having the luxury to sleep with a full belly every night. Having the type of father that I did, I would always sympathize my mothers pain. The only thing I ever promised myself while growing up was that I would never be that kind of father, the kind that would drink away his wages leaving his wife and kids to starve. But when I look back, I always underestimated the power of my mother. No matter how bad it was, she never gave up, she always gave us the strength and support we needed to get out of bed each day. But then came the day I still regret the most, when I grew up and disrespected my mother. That day still haunts me, and that very moment when I slapped my mother across the face still reminds me of the sobbing sounds my mother made all night. That day will forever haunt me because I never really understood how, or even why she put up with it. It was enough to have been married to an Irish man who her family disproved of, but my mother had the willpower to give birth to seven children. She had the strength to watch three of those seven children be buried before her eyes and the courage to stand up for herself against the world. My mother Angela Sheehan was one of the strongest women I have ever seen in my life, but I never quite understood how she did it. Living a life like that is something I would never been able to go through, and I always wondered how she did it. What would you have done if you were in her place?

Being such a significant aspect that helped me reflect upon my life as a whole, Angela's Ashes became "my story". It was the tale told of an ordinary boy and his journey to manhood. It's funny how the journey of ones childhood can be set between the front and back covers of a book. It seems indifferent that this was and still is my life. As I look back I wonder if my life would be different if I had kept that job at the post office and stayed in Limerick my entire life. I wan to know what you think, did I make the right decision?