Narrative Text on the Family

Narrative Text on the Family

The secret history of my family

It is strange to think that one's family existed before one came into the world, that is, that it has a history that one did not live, of which one is not part. But I have seen the photos, I have read the letters, I have seen the videos that my father took on my sister's first birthdays, and little by little I have come to understand who they were before me. That is its secret history, like the dark side of the Moon.

The secret history of my family begins, as is logical to suppose, when my parents met. My father says that he went to a dance that was held every year in his hometown, and that all the young people from the neighboring towns attended. He says that at that time he had finished high school and was helping in his father's store, not really knowing what to do with his life. But as soon as he saw my mother sitting on a bench and surrounded by her friends, he knew what the future held for him and he knew it would be with that girl, whose name he didn't even know. He even says that he could see our faces, mine and my sister's, as if we were a distant memory of something that would take time to happen.

My mother, on the other hand, tells a different story. She says that they had already met, a couple of years before that dance, through a mutual friend who frequented both towns. And that my father had not wanted to pay the slightest attention to him. Maybe because she was still very little. Until two years later, when she found out about that dance, she put on her best dress and she ran away from home with her friend, whose older brother was old enough to drive. She was sure that at that dance she would meet my father, and that this time she would not go unnoticed. And, as history shows, she was right.

My mother says that at that time she was about to finish high school and that she dreamed of going to university. Her family had worked in the fields for several generations, but she wanted nothing to do with potatoes and beets, instead she dreamed of becoming a veterinarian.

He also says that on the night of the dance, after having turned around and around in my father's arms, he told him all that while they took in fresh air. "I knew you were different," she says my father told her, before proposing that they escape together to the city: she would study and he would work to support them both, and when he finished his degree, they would go back to town together to open a practice vet. And so, the following week, without telling anyone about their plans, they went together to live in the city.

Neither of my parents likes to talk about their first years together. I suspect these were difficult times, judging from the photos. They looked skinny, a little sad, sitting in a square among dry trees and strange statues. In other photos, only my father appears, in his mechanic's overalls covered in grease stains. But always with that look of confidence, as if convinced that in the end things would turn out as they should. Maybe because he had had that vision at the dance.

I also know, putting together the clues that I have found in her letters, that they were separated for a time. They have never told us anything about it, but my sister suspects that our mother was dating someone else. Anyway, nobody cares about that, because when she returned to the city from her internships in the south of the country, they were together again.

That same year they decided to get married, a small ceremony with almost no witnesses, of which we have a couple left. of photos and a photocopy of the original marriage certificate, in which my father's name is wrong written. There are no photos of her honeymoon, which was also in the south of the country, in the mountainous region that my mother had met in her internships and that she now wanted to share with her husband. From there came the name of my sister, Silvana, which is the name of the Mountain where she was conceived, during that week's trip in my father's second-hand car.

Silvana was born at the beginning of the following year. She is the one who has the most photos: in the crib, newborn; in the bathroom a few months later; on the shoulders of our father, in the park; or crying heartbrokenly on Santa Claus's knees. Also, in the photos, our parents couldn't look happier. I think Silvana arrived at the best time.

Two years later, it was my turn to get into this story. Silvana says they weren't expecting me, that it was all surprise. But she sometimes she says those things to annoy me.

Here ends the secret history of my family, the one that took place before I was born. It's hard not to be surprised by everything that had to happen for one to come into the world.

References:

• "Narration" in Wikipedia.
• "Narrative text" in Cervantes Virtual Center.
• "Narrative text" in the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.

What is a narrative text?

A narrative text It is one that contains a story, that is, that offers the reader a series of events spun in an orderly manner and in which a story is told.

The characteristic element of the narrative text is the presence of the storyteller, which may or may not be a character in the story. The story has a plot, that is, a connection between events and a series of characters, which can be divide between main (to whom the story happens) and secondary (who accompany the main).

Some examples of literary texts are stories, novels, Chronicles, legends, myths, and journalistic texts.

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