When I was a little girl, I was constantly scribbling away in my notebooks and journals. My head was filled with stories and poems and chapters in books. With a pencil and a piece of paper, I could pretty much get lost all day in my own thoughts.
In my small town, I didn’t have much of an audience for my writing. I won the occasional newspaper contest and saw my name in print in our school’s literary publications but other than that, not many folks saw what I wrote. Just me, mostly. And my dad.
When I got older, I found out that my dad had kept a lot of my writings. Some – like the one I wrote about how the turtle got his shell – he even laminated and kept for me for “some day”. I remember looking through this huge stack of papers (including letters that I had written home when I studied abroad) and thinking how cool it was that my dad thought what I wrote was worth saving (note to readers: my dad is most definitely *not* a pack rat). And for you youngsters out there, I grew up in an age that pre-dated computers and scanners. There were no digital copies of anything: it was all pencils and paper. Saving things was a bit of an effort.
I say all of this because today is my dad’s birthday. It seems fitting to say “Happy Birthday” on my blog since he was the one who quietly encouraged me to keep writing. Even when my advisors and counselors were explaining to me that writing was a folly and would never result in any kind of career, my dad, who was generally the practical one, kept encouraging me.
So thanks, Dad. And happy birthday!
What a dad. You’re a lucky gal!