Style and Attitude

When I was in eighth grade, I wrote my first short story to submit to a writing contest my school was having. The story was called, "The Adventures of Tommy the Tube of Toothpaste." Before I submitted it, I asked my dad to read it. This was a big deal for me. Dad was never known to beat around the bush with his critique of anything. He was the proverbial bull in the china shop when it came to people's feelings. But he was blunt and honest. So I gave my story to him. He's my dad after all. He knows stuff.

He read it.

And the next day, he called me into the dining room.

"Hey!......." (yeah, Dad did the "HEY!" thing, even back then. Just not as loud. He still had his hearing.)

"I read your story...." (pause)

I waited for the feedback I was sure was coming: he didn't understand the story; my sentence structure is all wrong; maybe go back and give it another try. 

"Listen!!"

"Yeah?"

"I read your story."

"Yeahhhh?" And I'm thinking "Come on just get it over with. It's a silly story, right?"

But instead, he smiled and said, ".....You can write!"

(Wait.........what.........)"Really?"

"Yeah!"

"wow."

Then he handed me my story, still smiling at me. "So you know what makes a good writer?"

"noooo?"

"Style."

"Ohhhh."

"Yeah! You've got a style!"

"wow."

"And you know what else makes a good writer?"

"There's more?"

"Attitude. You have attitude."

It took me a good couple of hours to process all of this new information, but mostly the concept that my dad was handing out a piece of rarely received praise. I mean.....wow. The next day I submitted "The Adventures of Tommy the Tube of Toothpaste" and a week later, found out I had won the whopping $30 prize and publication of the story in the school newspaper.

But that's not the real point of this story.

In the last two months before Dad died, he fell, fractured his left femur, had surgery to fix the fracture, then contracted pneumonia, was diagnosed with COPD, was restricted to a wheelchair, and was then placed in hospice care. The prognosis on paper was six months. Dad had repeatedly told everyone that he wouldn't die until Mom died. How he figured he had control over death, I'll never know. What I do know is that when my brother told Dad that he would be in a wheelchair the rest of the way out, Dad looked my brother straight in the eye and said, "I've changed my mind." And he died two weeks later. 

And the thing that just keeps popping into my head, over and over again, is how amazing my dad was. 

He had a style.

And he definitely had attitude.