Summary Of Lonnie By Pauline Woodson

In life, it is essential to understand that certain things are beyond control, leaving them to be inevitable, despite how hard we try to fight these statistics. In Jacqueline Woodson’s piece, “Parents Poem” the speaker touches on this concept when both of his parents die unexpectedly, throughout the poem “Lonnie” is able to explain his grieving and how the author shows how he is able to cope with his loss.. By the end of this poem Woodson effectively illustrates how everyone grieves differently and during this process death has the ability to destroy an individual, however a sense of security can be created with memories by suggesting that the moments created with someone are not to be forgotten even if the rest of the world might forget them.
In Woodson’s poem the speaker captures this feeling when he describes the experience of losing both parents to be excruciatingly lonely due to judging eyes shift and now look at him like he is “the most pitiful thing in the world”. When the speaker experiences this, at the moment he wants to do anything to ensure he will never feel this vulnerable again, causing him to lie about the death of his parents and run from the truth. Often, when it comes to loss, many are unable to properly show condolences which leads to people closing off their emotions towards each other like illustrated in this poem. It is essential that these judging eyes learn how to become more accepting of the circumstances people are going through and instead of making snare looks offer some type of hope towards the individual who is so obviously struggling to be so