Personal Story Assignment

I'm currently taking a free online class through the University of Michigan on storytelling for social change. For the first module, our task was to write a brief (100-250 words) story that included a protagonist and an antagonist. Here's what I wrote:

"Becky, I don't care what you do with your life when you grow up as long as you don't get fat," he said as we were sitting in the front seat of his car, riding home from dinner.

I was about eleven at the time, visiting my father after having recently moved back to Georgia from New York. I didn’t say anything; I fought back tears, looked down at my chubby belly, and then turned my head to look out the window. He ignored the silence and changed the subject, asking me about school and how things were at home.

I answered his questions and smiled when we finally got to his house. I had gone so long without seeing him, so I wanted to make the most of it. I tried so hard to forget.

But I didn’t.

I remembered them when I was seventeen and learned that I would have to get my thyroid removed, almost guaranteeing a life-long struggle with weight. And I remember them now, nearly two decades later. I’ve forgiven my father for many things over the years--forgiven him for the unkind words he spoke about my mother, for the years and years of missed child support payments that caused me to grow up in poverty, for the overall absence in my life. But those words? How can I forget those words? And what kind of man lets his little girl believe that she’s unlovable if she’s fat?

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