by Tara Allan Stewart

Created on: February 24, 2009

MY FATHER, THE WRITER (1921-2005)

My favorite writer was never published, but he had an imagination that amazed me. He loved to tell the tall tales of his childhood, of meeting my mother and falling in love, how if he had gone for a burger instead of stopping by the party, he would never have met her.

When he was discharged from the Army after WWII, my father and mother were married. It was there third date, and my father began a timeline from the moment he met her through the first year they spent together, ending with my brother's birth. He loved to write!

As a little girl, I was very proud of my father's article in every Sunday's newspaper, "Drive-A-Live," a column complete with a photograph of some unsuspecting driver recklessly breaking the law. When I was older, with an English degree of my own, we shared hours together at Creative Writing classes. Dad should have added a few grammar classes to his Creative Writing!

I remember when he wrote his first novel. He was very proud, and he had it typed carefully and prepared it as a manuscript. This began his collection of rejection letters.

Dad was still writing in his 80's, and he had a quirky style all his own. His last project was a short book, his memoirs, memories of being a "pk" (preacher's kid), growing up in North and South Dakota and in Iowa. I asked him once why he never quit. He only had one or two short stories ever published.

"Quit? If I quit now, what example am I setting for my children?" Our last Christmas together included a picture of my father, no longer using his IBM Selectric typewriter, but using a personal computer, typing away with his glasses slipping down his nose. No, he never learned to type, either. But he could tell a story.

His stories are in my hands now, and they live forever in my heart. I promise him, I will publish his memoirs so he will be proud, even if only for family members to enjoy. And who knows? Perhaps he will be published posthumously professionally, his dream at last come true through my hands and the memories of a remaining aunt and uncle.

He was never too old to stop writing, and I reach for the phone when something new of mine goes up on Helium. Like him, I hope I never lose the thrill of a new idea of exciting poem, not until the day I die.

No one is ever too old to write, beginner or professional, do what makes you smile in life. Like Dad, look at yourself in the mirror with the knowledge that you aren't a quitter, no matter what it is you love.

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