My Literacy Narrative

Quincy Boyd

Mr. Quaid Adams
English 102: Writing II
November 16, 2025

 

            Death can bring you to use or develop skills you may not like and may not care to develop.  When you use the tool of writing, you may not realize what you are doing until you go back and read what you have written.

 

            When I entered high school as a freshman, my mother suddenly passed away and that was something I just could not understand.  She was so full of life and energy.  It devastated me and my brother.  I had to go live with my grandmother which was okay.  However, she was older and my mother was so full of energy and fun times.  As African Americans it is somewhat disrespectful to question things we cannot control so I dare not ask the question WHY.  Also, there is not a consideration for counseling.  My school even suggested counseling but I had already made up my mind I was not talking to nobody about anything.

 

            One avenue or outlet was being on the football team.  They were a great support with sympathy knowing my mother had died.  They even came to her visitation and surrounded me with love and support.  When we had games I thought about the fact that if my mother was living she would have been at the games.

 

            My life took a turn when my mother died and I had emotions that were scrambling in my head and yet I was silent as a church mouse.  I would not talk nor give any expressions of emotions to anyone.  Since I was artistic and liked to draw I began to express my emotions through my drawing in my sketch book that I kept with me.  A family member realized the change in my personality and talked to me about a journal.  She explained that writing your feelings can unscramble the chaos going on in your head when you are so emotionally shaken that you don’t know what to do.

 

            I did not want to write anything because writing was not my favorite thing to do.  I did recall that my mother used to write poems all the time about things she liked and people she communicated with.  Most of her writings were about liking and love.

 

            One day after I had drawn a sketch in my sketchbook, I turned to the back and thought about what I could say to my mother if she could read my writing.  It sounds crazy but I decided to write as if it were a letter to her.  I did not even think about whether she would be able to read it.  I began to write how much I loved her and how much fun it was spending time with her.  I recalled the way we would play wrestling when I did not obey something she would ask me to do.  After writing the letter I read it and it was as if a load was lifted from my scrambled brain and I felt lighter in my head.  This was like a light bulb came on for me to see that writing was like a medicine or therapy and it worked.

 

            From that day on when I felt lonely and missing my mother I wrote her a letter and read it afterwards.  Those letters have become a part of my keepsakes.  Writing impacted my life in such an unusual way and reading also.  I have never been fond of writing nor reading, however writing and reading were tools for my emotional relief during the early days after my mother’s death.  Although those writings were short and specific they were very meaningful.

 

            Three years after my mother died, my grandfather died of COVID and that was a devastation for me because he was the ultimate father figure in my life.  Again emotions scrambling in my head caused me to withdraw and be silent.  I remembered that letters to my mother after her death so I wrote one to my grandfather.  I thanked him for all he had done for me and the support he had given me.  After I read it I threw it away and felt relieved from that writing and reading.  Somehow I did not feel the need to save it but writing it and reading it unscrambled my brain and I was better.

 

            Three years ago I was involved in a severe vehicle accident when I tractor trailer truck ran me over the lane on the expressway.  That resulted in me running off the embankment off of interstate 65, down the hill, flipping over three times and landing with my grandfather’s truck upside down on fire in the middle of Preston Street in front of Male High School.  This traumatic incident again shut me down to silence.  The ambulance took me to the hospital and I was blessed to be alive with no broken body parts.  The truck driver kept going.  My vehicle was totaled but I was grateful to be a survivor.  “How do I get this trauma out of my head” was the question I kept thinking about.

 

            My mind went back to the journal that helped relieve my scrambled brain.  As I recovered I started a journal of what happened.  My grandmother was reminding me every day of the blessing to be alive through that accident.  I wrote in my journal what happened and what could have been worst to happen.  What a release from the scramble in my head.

 

            Those writing journals have made me realize how much of a tool writing can be and how I can express my thoughts using that tool.  Even more is the reading of my writings that relieved the tension in my head.  Although I have not shared my writings with others, it has been very valuable to me.

 

            This writing literacy course has really enlightened me to how others appreciate reading through comic books and how that prompted their writing and reading skills.  I found it interesting from the person who was reading and realized it was not understood by her mother because of her language difference and interpretation.  When a person expresses their story in writing there can be different interpretations depending on the culture and education level of the reader.  Using eloquent words with an elementary reader can not only loose the reader but also be misunderstood what the writer meant.

            I think it is extremely important to write at the level of the reader you will be entertaining.  I personally like simple easy to read writings that do not require definitions of the terms used in the writing.  I now realize from this class how impacting writing and reading can be and I will value the information gained from this writing literacy class.