The Leap ~ Louise Erdrich (Page 190)

      The mother is a sightless women, and even though she cannot see, she is more cautious then the average person. She never upset anything or makes objects fall to the floor. The mother has a cat like precision, and she is kind, caring, gentle, and graceful. The mother is very wise, and has a very good sense of everything around her and where it is because she never runs into anything and is always graceful no matter what she is doing. She must concentrate a lot on what she is doing to prevent herself from being clumsy and bumping into things since she is unable to physically see everything. She put others before herself and is not afraid to take risks to help others out, such as when the tent collapsed, instead of grabbing her husbands ankle and pulling him down to the ground with her, she allowed him to swing in his own direction to safety, risking her own life. The mother is illiterate, even though she could not read and write she was a very smart lady. In the early years of the mother’s life before she went blind, she was a trapeze artist. When she retired from being a trapeze artist she did not hold onto her past, not keeping old sequined costumes or photographs.

The mother’s daughter is the narrator. Therefore when she is describing her mother to us, its described in greater detail because the daughter lives with her mother on a daily basis and can observe her mother’s actions more closely then a different character tell the story.

Connections:
I can relate to this story because my aunt lost her house in a house fire. In the story the mother was able to save her child from the fire by climbing up the tree and going in through the window. My cousin was in her room sleeping when the fire started. The rest of her family  was able to escape, but could not get to her. She did not come out on her own, and when the fire deparment went into find her room to try and rescue her, they were unable to find her. It turns out that she had went into her closet. I may have not met this cousin, but I wish I would of had the chance to. All the stories I am told about her, she seems great. My grandpa on my dad's side also passed away in a fire, I am unsure as of what happened.