Sunday, October 23, 2011

Rosa Lee

When I picked up the book last week to read for Thursday, I had no idea what it was about. I was about to read the back of the book, when I decided that I wanted to be surprised. After reading the first few pages I sure was surprised. I was so shocked by the story of Rosa Lee that started to unfold. It was also very shocking to see that Rosa Lee was so open with her life. I would think that someone who has been addicted to heroin almost their whole life would be scared to tell their story, in fear of getting in trouble. I was also shocked to read about the different places that these events were taking place. I live in a very small suburban town in Maryland that is 25 minutes from D.C. I go to D.C. all the time and to read about this areas in this way only confirmed my suspicions that I had about them. It is also sad to see that these events are happening so close to the capitol, yet not much was done about it.

Two quotes really stood out to me in the reading. The first one is, "'Mama if you don't give me a hit,' she said, 'then I'm going to go out of here and trick." And the other one is related to this, "Fifteen years would pass before Patty would go as long as two months without drugs." I was so shocked that Patty would threaten her mother like that. I know from experience that it wouldn't work if I tried that on my mother, but I also had a very different childhood. At the time Patty was only fifteen and she had already started her battle with addiction. I just couldn't believe that a mother could willingly give one of her children a very addicted drug. I had a completely different childhood then Rosa Lee and her children. I was not exposed to drugs until high school and it was not even the hard-core kind like cocaine and heroin. I had heard "horror stories", but none of these compare to Rosa Lee's. It is also sad the think about how Rosa Lee had to live with the fact that she played an prominent role in her own daughter's addiction that lasted for the majority of her life.

I think that this quote can relate to service in a couple of ways. First of all some of the learners could have been dropped out of school because they had some sort of addiction, but that isn't the only way it can be related. Parents are a child's first role model. I know that when I was younger all I wanted to be when I grew up was just like my mom, and I'm sure that is true for most people. Patty's role model was unlike most of ours. Her role model was a drug addict, so all Patty knew about an adult life was drugs. It was only natural for her to get roped into the same life as her mom. I'm sure that many of the learners had role models similar to Patty. Not in the sense that they were necessarily addicted to drugs, but who were not fully present. Due to the fact that their parents were not fully present, then they were struggling in school they had no one to fight for them. It is truly sad that the learners, as well as Patty, never had role models who were there for them. I don't know what I would have done if I didn't have a mom that was so fully dedicated to my siblings and me.

No comments:

Post a Comment