A Tale of Two Chances

“A Tale of Two Chances”

The essay, “A Tale of Two Chances” by Paulo Bedonia Masangcay, relates an unexpected chance in a saddening experience that once happened to him and his family. It was when the father of the family was rushed to the hospital and almost everybody thought it was his end, yet the patient unexpectedly survived and this was the main focus of this essay. It was actually this experience which awakened the author and made him realize that he failed to treat his father fairly.

As for diction, the author made use of the past form of the verb almost all throughout the essay. Such words are: felt, wanted, commemorated, rushed, snapped, came, coughed, struggled, succumbed, mentioned, etc. The words used were simple and easy to understand, but it depicts the emotions expressed by the author.

In the first paragraph, the author made use of the compound word “half-hearted” instead of using uncertain, unsure, or other words which simply means the same. The use of the compound word “half-hearted” swings the negative feeling or emotion that could have been communicated by the essay to a lighter emotion. Since, in this essay, the author is writing about his father, he made mention of his father as well as his condition so many times, but the father was addressed in many different ways. In the last three paragraphs, the author referred to him as “father”; “our old man”; “our patriarch” and “patient”. This style, in my opinion, gets rid of the monotonous impression of the author’s ideas.

          As for semantics, in the first two paragraphs, which I quoted here, the focus of the action/ the story shifted from “God” to his (the author’s) father.

            “At first I felt half-hearted to start by saying, God is amazing.  This description of the Almighty has been said and used a million times, and somehow, it has lost its meaning (talk about “used-upness” of something). I probably wanted to come up with the best representation in words for Him. But for lack of even a better word (in my opinion) to attribute to Him, I am going to suffice myself with the same descriptive word – amazing. Yes, He is amazing that sometimes I feel undeserving of His continuous favors. He is amazing that even though I’ve got a number of shortcomings, still, He is unselfishly ever ready to give a second, third, fourth – or perhaps even an infinite number of chances!”

                “Just recently, my father and I were given a precious chance - for my father a chance for a prolonged life, and for me a chance to prove my worth as a son. Losing a father (or any member of the family) is indeed one of the most unthinkable life events that anyone working overseas can experience. And I almost had this bitter share of life’s bitters three days before I commemorated my coming to this world naked. Life could have been unfair to me but it wasn’t.”

The author actually mentioned in the beginning of this essay that it was actually a chance between he and his father, but later on in the essay, he claimed/ cleared that both chances were actually more for him than his father since he admitted that he was not able to treat his father fairly as he does to his mother.

In the line ”… while my eyes were glued to the cell phone lying about 1-foot away from me. , of the third paragraph, space was given emphasis, where the author mentioned that the cell phone is lying “one foot away from him”.

Based on my reading, the shifting of the action and focus of the essay can be illustrated as “A-F-A-F-A”. Action shifted from the “author to his father; to the author to his father and then back to him (the author).

Indeed, nothing is perfect in this world. No matter how we try to be one, we all commit mistakes; but we may fail to do as expected there are a lot of chances to make it up. Dwelling on such failure would not change a thing, but doing something to correct it will surely bring something good. No one in this world could have been successful if not because of a very supportive parents. What I learned here is that no one knows what he/she has until he starts to appreciate it. Lastly, in every walk of life, one should always know how to look back to the people who made a difference in his/her life.