I’ve spent a lot of this past month on the road driving to the hospital, or to a group home, to see my father who has Alzheimer’s. This is a sad time for me, in many ways. One of which is that my father was a true storyteller. He was born with the Gift. Now, his drifting into and out of lucidity is the death of many stories I will not get to hear again in his voice. (Already, I treasure an audio tape I made of him a few years ago.) 

Sometimes, I hear his voice when I write. He was the model for the grandfather in my novel, SPITTING IMAGE (Clarion, 2003), with his 1941 Mercury Coupe. And he appeared in my picture book, MY MOUNTAIN SONG (Clarion, 2004), as the irksome cousin, Melvin. 

 

 

  

Against the day of the actual silencing of my father’s voice, I keep it alive by writing. This is especially important, I believe, for though he was always a talker . . . my father was, for all intents and purposes, illiterate.

One story he often told was that whenever my grandfather needed Dad on the farm, he and his brothers would be pulled out of school. When the weather was too bad for farm work, they went back to school. This went on for all his young school years. 

Dad said he cried when he was taken out of school. This was not because of the farm labor ahead of him, but because of all he would miss. Then he would cry when he returned, because the other kids would make fun of him. He wouldn’t know where they were in the books, or what had been covered in the lessons. This was a one-room schoolhouse, and to his shame he always ended up grouped with the youngest students. 

I didn’t hear this story until I was an adult. But early on I knew the ramifications of it, for my father NEVER let us miss a day of school. We lived next door to the elementary school and unless we were deathly ill, we went. When I was young, I never understood why I couldn’t stay home once in a while. I had friends who got to skip out if they had so much as a belly ache. Not me, not my sister, nor my brothers. 

Now I understand; and I bless him for his strong belief that NOTHING is more important than an education. I became one of the first of our extended family to attend college. Studying English, writing, drama, teaching, and library science gave me the grounding I needed to be a writer. And as a writer, I get to tell his stories as well as my own. 

Once, before we had to put him in a group home, I’d spent the night with my parents. The next morning I discovered him at the breakfast table with one of my picture books opened before him. He’d gotten up early to “read” it. He looked up and smiled at me. “I made it through,” he said. “The pictures help. Ya did good.” 

Ya did good, too, Dad.

 

Ciao!

  Shutta