Good morning. I’m Henry from 6A. Today I’m glad to share with you a pretty much inspiring book called A Man Named Dave by Dave Pelzer.

Childhood is supposed to be flushed with glamour and felicity. The innocence we once had blessed us with a pair of rosy glasses through which we saw the world as a dreamy paradise. Sad and astonishing enough, things turned out to be a total reverse for Dave Pelzer as an eight year old child. Dave did not have a ‘home’ nor a ‘family’. He was locked in a dark, cold basement, starved till he trembled, kicked and stabbed with a knife on the body until unceasing drips of blood lay on the freezing floor – by his own mother. Can anyone imagine that? His so-called “mother” refused to call him anything but “a piece of pathetic filth”. His alcoholic father was gone with the broken promises of saving him. For years Dave had been the human robot to do with as his mother pleased, like some toy that she could turn on and off whenever she wished. His world was black without a single trace of light, and the only way out was either escape, or more probably, death – until he was taken away from the clutches of his vicious mother, and from then on, raised by his foster parents.

So Dave survived his childhood and adolescence, after Dave became a young man, he was determined to come to grips with what had happened back there. After he had been in the Air Force a few years, one day he decided he was going to go back and confront his mother, in a non-threatening way. He just wanted some answers. So he went to see her and he asked her about why she had treated him the way she had. Her response, even after all this time: “YOU WERE TRASH, BOY.”

It wouldn’t be surprising if Dave’s resentment against his mother grew further in the flames of fury, but Dave, though startled and frustrated, chose to forgive his mother for everything he had been put through. Left with inerasable mental scars from brutalization, Dave ultimately learnt that forgiveness was the only way to resilience because hatred was only a backward-pointing knife thirsting for more blood and suffering. This may sound unconvincing to some people, but after years of being haunted by heart-wrenching recollection, Dave could definitely tell from his own experience, and prove to all helpless souls that if one has to move forward, he must first let go of his past. Reading this part of the book, I was initially angered by Dave’s incapability of taking revenge, but after clearing my mind of all the emotional, yet unwise thoughts, I found myself so deeply touched by and proud of how courageous and sober Dave was to have transformed torture into love. My sincerest salute goes to Dave Pelzer for what a great man he has become today.

Pampered by Mom and Dad in every way, I nearly got everything I wanted. This is why Dave’s early life as an abused child seems quite unrealistic to me. As Dave now says, “Perhaps because of my past, the most important things for me are still the simplest.” In addition to praising the unconditional nature of love I have been experiencing, I would also say being thankful is how everyone should live the day. It is never fair to compare our parents with others’ in terms of the intensity of love. It is because the fact that someone doesn’t love you the way you want them to doesn’t mean they don’t love you with all they have.

This is the end of my sharing and I hope all of us can learn from the triumphant story of the man named Dave.