Arturo's mother feels that her father's life has been

a waste of a fine mind." what do you think?

story : an hour with abuelo

She believes that because her father was a teacher in his hometown, but he couldn’t perform as a teacher as he would have liked given World War II began.

Explanation:

This short story An hour with Abuelo, by Judith Ortiz Cofer, is about a family who used to live in Puerto Rico but when the war came, their life changed, particularly Arturo’s. Arturo is the name of the “Abuelo”, the main character, his origin is very humble, he explains that his mother taught him and his brothers, how to read and that way his love for letters was born, so with all efforts, he went to study high school, when he graduated he went back to his hometown to be a teacher, the only teacher in the village, he was happy to pass his knowledge to the others.  

In this story, Arturo wrote a book, entitled “Así es la vida”, where he tells his life story about giving up a dream due to external circumstances. There is a paragraph that says “with my heart and my soul I knew that I wanted to be around books all of my life”. This sentence expresses in a few words the gist of the story, the dream that never could be of a man because of the WWII.  

In conclusion, it is hard to give up a dream and even more when it was materializing in front of you and suddenly is taken away. Sometimes we think we should bare whatever happens in our life just because "that is the way things are" (así es la vida) yet we should always fight to achieve what we want.