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Sat 31 Mar, 2012 02:04 am
Context:
A descendant of abolitionist and writer Harriet Beecher Stowe,[1] Cornwell was born in Miami, Florida to Marilyn and Sam Daniels. Her father was one of the leading appellate lawyers in the United States and served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black. Cornwell later traced her own motivations in life to the emotional abuse she says she suffered from her father, who walked out
on the family on Christmas Day 1961. She has said, "He was on his deathbed. We knew it was the last time we’d see each other; he grabbed my brother's hand and mouthed 'I love you,' but he never touched me. All he did was write on a legal pad 'How's work?'"[2]
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Cornwell
Jer father left the family, moved out, and didn't come back on Xmas day. Picture someone walking out the front door of the house and never coming back. If you walk out on something it usually carries a negative connotation of deserting something you shouldn't desert. Well, no, not entirely. I take that back. You can also walk out on something you find really distasteful and offensive, like someone using racist hate words. I guess it has an air of finality about it. That's it, I'm leaving, I'm never coming back, I reject all future involvement. It sounds like after years of estrangement he sort of tried to make things good on his deathbed, but he didn't do a very good job of it and she was hurt because he was so emotionally distant to her, even as he was dieing.
Also in things like political debates, or political speeches or treaty talks, if someone says something or if you know they're going to say something, that you really, really, really don't like, you can make a very public show of disagreement bu rising from the table, or your seat, turning your back on them, and walking out of the room. It's a sign of breaking off the talks, breaking off all relations.
No matter what you meet, the comfort of the family will let you regrouped, so love our family
@oristarA,
oristarA wrote:who walked out on the family on Christmas Day 1961.
Your placement of the start and end bold tags shows you have split the idiomatic phrasal verb "walk out on" in the wrong place. Beware of this! To "walk out on" a situation or person or people means to leave it, possibly angrily or abruptly or unexpectedly or shamefully (or some or all of these). The father abandoned the family. To do so on Christmas Day might be seen as especially surprising, shameful or shocking, since in the Western Christian tradition, Christmas Day is supposed to be a day of family togetherness.
Personally, having read some of Cornwell's books, I don't blame him.
@contrex,
Quote:who walked out on the family on Christmas Day 1961.
Quote:Your placement of the start and end bold tags shows you have split the idiomatic phrasal verb "walk out on" in the wrong place. Beware of this!
I didn't get this at all until I realized that it referred to the title, to Ori's reading of the sentence - walk out, on the family.
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