My Thirteenth Winter

In the book, “My Thirteenth Winter” by Samantha Abeel, the author shows a very important message to reader. In this memoir, Samantha struggles with her learning disability for math. As she grew older, math connected to many things in her life, making it harder to get through her day. Although this disability was a burden on Samantha in many ways, it didn’t make her give up or hold back. She learns she is a strong and smart person and she still has hope. This memoir shows how life is full of obstacles and things that you have to try and cope with, and try to get over. Samantha’s obstacle would be her math disability, but she learns to understand she has to live with this obstacle and she gets around it, one way or another.

One step toward getting over an obstacle, would be to accept it. As Samantha started to get older, she realized she had a hard time understanding math in general. She was already in seventh grade, and she couldn’t tell time, remember her locker combination, or even count money. A seventh grader should know these things, and Samantha knew she had a disability. It wasn’t until her thirteenth winter until she admitted to herself that it was real. On page 18 Samantha and her mom are doing math flash cards so she can try to understand. She says, “Eventually, mom decides to go back to the problem 5-2=_____. She wears a look of determined expectation. “Ok”, She says. “Here is one you will get for sure”. I look again at the symbols on the card and feel my brain working, searching to access the information, but no answers come.” This shows how Samantha Abeel finally realizes she has a learning disability and it shows how she struggles with this. She knows that this is her disability and that this is how her brain will work for the rest of her life. It was important for her to realize and admit to herself that she will have to get around this.

With a learning disability, there are many hardships that come along with it. In school, its socially challenging since you might be the only one in the seventh grade who can’t tell time. I can see how Samantha may not want to admit to herself that she has this problem. As a young student, telling time was something that kids had tests on, and not always would kids get it right. When Samantha was in third grade, she has a test on addition and subtraction. Everyone else was done and she was left back, having to correct her answers. “I watch as she checks off my problems. I have added when the sign said to subtract. Others I have subtracted when I’m supposed to add. In some, I forgot to include certain numbers. My answers aren’t anywhere close to correct. Mrs. Kendall points out these errors, goes over them, and asks me to go back and make corrections”. This shows how Samantha knows she has made a mistake in these problems but it also shows how she really has a disability that will cause her great hardships and burdens. However, Samantha has to go through this every day and it can be hard. Especially going to a public school for kids who don’t have disabilities, Samantha handles the problem.

Having a disability can put you at many disadvantages. It could be socially or physically, and those types of disadvantages can be really hard on you. Samantha learns to handle this disability of hers, and even if it may try to hold her back, she eventually gets over it. For example, when Samantha and her friends were seeing if they got into the TAG program at school, Samantha was prepared for the test scores and wasn’t too upset when she found out she didn’t get in. “I did not make it into the TAG program. My test scores for math were not high enough”. This shows that these disabilities hold you back and can limit opportunities in life, but that’s ok because you know that somehow you can get over this. Samantha’s life was full of obstacles that all revolve around her math disability, but she shows us that even when you feel as though all hope is lost, you can figure it out somehow.

In conclusion, a very important theme was captured in this memoir. Life is full of hardships and obstacles, which you have to get over and cope with. Samantha has a math learning disability, and this caused her disadvantages and limited her as a growing girl. However, she gets over the problems that this disability causes her. This shows how you can get over hardships and obstacles that life brings you.