My father was a
writer. That was something I knew about him as I grew up—not from him, as he was
gone. But my mother told me, as did a friend of the family, a man who’d grown up
best friends with my dad.
This man was a lawyer.
My dad, on the death of his own father when he was a young man of 17 or so, had
to leave school and go to work to support his mother. It was the 1930s and that
was just what you did. But for all of the rest of his life, this man remained a
good friend to my dad, despite the differences in their educations, and
vocations.
I recall, when I was
about ten or so, seeing a small sample of his writing—just a half page, and I
had never been able to recall what it was. As I grew older, I just assumed that
nothing of what he’d written remained.
Fourteen years after
his death at the age of 46 in 1962, my mother passed away—at the too young age
of 57. I was married at the time, with one child. Yet I remember thinking that
even though I was a wife and mother, I was also now an orphan.
I raised my kids
and worked, and then, just as we were about to become “dinks”—double income with
no kids—I had a heart attack. I was 48 at the time, and I survived. Three months
later, I began to have angina attacks and it was determined I needed
angioplasty. At the last minute, that turned into triple
by-pass. I recovered, and
was told by my beloved that I was now a “retired” person. Being idle isn’t me,
and when I wondered aloud what I would do for the rest of my life, he told me to
go after that dream of mine.
And I did.
My first taste of
success was winning a short story contest hosted by the Canadian Writer’s
Journal. This was a literary publication. I was so excited, of course I had to
share the news with my big brother.
And that is when he
gave me the most unexpected and precious of gifts: an envelope containing
samples of my father’s work. It thrilled me even as it saddened me. My father
stopped writing when he left school. He had to work, and I guess he considered
it time to “put away childish things”.
These glimpses
into my father’s writer’s soul were ink on paper, the paper yellowed with
age. I transcribed what I
found there, and put it on my computer, in a file I called Legacy, and
distributed it to my family.
There were poems,
mostly, and one short story. One poem in particular spoke to me—written in 1931,
when he was a young man of 16. It was as if he knew that soon he’d join the
work-a-day world. It’s called Childhood Play, and I’d like to share it with
you:
When the little children
play
Happy beings night and
day
Grown up folks look sadly
on
And think of childhood that has
gone.
Just a little simple
noise
Animates their very
toys
A little motions
fascination
The rest comes from
imagination.
A piece of string, a little
board
Some coloured glass oh what a
hoard!
“Tis junk” the grown up people
say
Tis treasure to a child at
play.
A ditch with muddy water
filled
Delights a little pilot
skilled
Who, over rapids safely
guides
His little bateaux through the
tides.
And thus in early, joyful
life
When yet each child has met no
strife
Each simple article
contains
Some hidden joy adults
distain.
In childhood beauty reigns
supreme
And innocence the only
theme
Would God our thoughts would so
remain
Tis true that thus we’d miss much
pain.
His poems and story
serve as an echo from an earlier time, and provide a connection—not from father
to daughter, but from writer to writer.
Love,
Morgan
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