Uni Nonfiction Blog (Miriam)

     Over the years, I’ve had many favorite childhood toys, but the ones that mean the most to me today are the ones that helped me through major life challenges. The single most important childhood possession to me was my stuffed dog Patches. Patches is a scruffy, and very floppy dog that my parents bought for me when I was 4 to help boost my confidence. My preschool teacher, Miss Brenda, noticed I couldn’t focus my right eye on the story books she would read aloud to my class (in other words, my right eye would wander). When she communicated this to my parents, they took me to see an optometrist. When I went to the eye doctor for the first time, I couldn’t even read the big “E” on the chart, making me legally blind. My parents also discovered that I had amblyopia, which is sometimes called “lazy eye.” I picked out my first pair of thin green glasses--and with it, an eyepatch. I know what you’re thinking, but I didn’t have to wear a pirate style skull-and-crossbones patc...

  Christmas Tradition Every year for Christmas, my immediate family rotates which extended family we visit. To visit my dad’s side of the family, we travel to Antwerp, Ohio, a tiny town with a population under 1,500 (so small Google lists it as a village). Over the past 50+ years, two of those 1,500 inhabitants have been my grandparents. My dad was born and raised in Ohio, and his parents, my Grandpa and Busha (Polish for “Grandma”), lived there the entire time I was growing up. Whenever my parents, my sister, my three brothers and I crammed into our minivan for the four-hour car trip, we were always glad to tumble out into my grandparents’ frosty driveway a few days before Christmas. The night before the big day arrived, after an enormous dinner with specialites piled high from all sides of the family, along with stolen bits of sugar cookie dough, my cousins and I would clamor into the living room and situate ourselves around the Christmas tree with presents piled neatly underneat...