Falling Close to the Tree

I'm so proud of my dad today!

He emailed me a short story he'd written about the night his brother was born. The story, set back on the midwestern farm where he grew up, was thoughtful and rich. It made me flash back to the cramped study in our old house, and to the unfinished pages I used to find there when I was a kid just looking for something to read.

Those pages from his desk drawers showed me a different side of my dad. So quiet in real life, he expressed himself on the page with passion and color. And reading those pages was like knowing him as a person.

Peeking in on his writing life affected me deeply over the years, like secret inspiration. I *never* told him (until I was grown) that I'd read those abandoned and sometimes unfinished stories. They haunted me, though.

I'd invent endings for some of them. In fact, the first short story I wrote with the intention to publish, was kind of an hommage to one of Dad's story images: A boy with an empty bird cage on a dusty road. Doesn't that picture make your brain go -- Why? What if?

The prose in his new story is simple, yet elegant -- just like he is. And the images he creates are unforgettable as ever. I hope he'll publish this story, so the world can enjoy it. I know he plans to share it with his brother.

I'm proud to be his daughter, sharing a lonely craft with him.

And I'm really glad he wasn't a build-a-ship-in-a-bottle kind of dad. My hand is not as steady as my imagination... :)