Personal Narrative: A Man Born In America

It was a warm day in Poway when the undertaker took my wife away. They wrapped her in a black sheet and loaded her into their Hearse. I felt helpless as I watched her leave. I wondered where her soul went, and I sat on the couch. The house seemed empty.

Thinking that I was a man born in America, which is a country no more or no less bigoted than any other country. I thought about my wife, a Mexican-American. I thought about what her life meant to me in such a landscape of hatred.

I was as if I stood in the dark side of my life. It was as if I stood alone under a starless sky, and I accused myself of my trespasses against my soul. I admitted my failure in my battle against my own actions or in-actions.

I felt as if I failed my wife because I failed to summon the courage to hammer down hatred – to strain against the demolition din – to fist up –to duke out – and -- to disassemble myself from these strings with which my culture pulls and tugs me.
Everyone was dressed in their Sunday best and laughing. I felt ashamed when I told myself to stay quiet because I couldn’t fit two worlds into one sentence.

My shame is as close to me as the soles of my shadow’s feet. My fears have a thousand legs as they crawl inside my skin. Unable to forgive my trespasses against my soul, I ask You, Lord, to forgive