Story Crop #2

Wow..while looking through Story Crops for a story to listen to, I spotted this story by just the title has caught my interest and made my jaw drop. Eager to listen to the explanation this story had about the title it made for itself, I clicked play. Listening to this woman's story about having a "mother-son" like relationship with this young man who has killed her real son was unbelievable. My eyes widen and the words "wow" escaped my mouth after almost every sentence. To me, this story was strangely touching due to the fact that most people that has a family member killed by someone else will never forgive and forget. "I began to say, "I just hugged the man that killed my son"...I knew that all the anger I had for this man..was over."-Mary Johnson. This shows me that actions do speak louder than words if that simple yet strong, emotional action could change a woman's mind after so many years of hurt. I could say that Mary forgiving the young man and has, in a way, taken him under her wing was very sweet and heartwarming. Keeping him away from gangs, drugs, and violence. Making sure that Oshea has the chance to get married or go to college. The chance that Mary's actual son never got.




The short description under the title has caught my attention do to the fact that I had somewhat a similar thing with my fifth grade teacher, so I kind of connected with the story. I found it funny at the beginning then touching at the end. Only the beginning part of the story is what I really connected with. We both had fifth grade teachers that were a bit difficult to work with. Both of our teachers had some sort of feature that made them stick out. For Don, his teacher, has he describied it, had a "hawk like" nose. For my teacher, she had one eye that would barely open. She also would rarely smile. This story was really humorous by how similar our problems were. This goes to show that you would really enjoy a story more if you can find a way to connect with it. For me, it would be the difficult fifth grade teacher. I liked how this story had a combination of both humor and heartwarming. It went together well because the story flowed good enough for the two to connect.