All about writing

My dad has always been a writer. He wrote and sold articles to newspapers, he wrote sermons for his congregation and for a wider audience through radio broadcasts, he has written a few religious books (leftover boxes of which are still in the lounge) and he has been a prolific letter writer. The latter is my inspiration for this blog post.

Every year for as long as I can remember, he has written a 'Christmas letter' for all of his family, friends and congregations. My Mum or I would be asked to type it for him. That is where the problems started as he uses an ancient fountain pen to write his very old fashioned type of cursive writing. It is really difficult to read. My Mum and I would always try our best to read it before asking him what it said as we knew he would be extremely offended and therefore we would get shouted at for being ignoramuses. We would throughly scan and reread our typing to ensure we added all of his punctuation, grammar and spelling exactly as he had written it. This was on fear of near death. Maybe a slight exaggeration, but the impact of his rage if we got it wrong would at times make us feel that we would rather be dead. I remember my heart beating so fast and physically trembling with a huge lump in my throat when I gave him the typed up letter to check as I knew I would have made some mistakes and would feel his wrath.

Alongside this, anything I wrote for essays or general homework was never good enough for him and he would rip it up and throw it in the bin and make me do it again. By that time I would be in such a state that I could not even put words to paper so I would get into even more trouble. When I think back on it now, all those nightmarish memories come flooding back. I would try and hide away from him to do my homework or ask my Mum to help me when he was not there. If he suddenly arrived home, I remember quite clearly shuffling newspapers or the fruit bowl over my homework in the hope he would not realise what I was doing and therefore would not get involved, as I would inevitably get into trouble and be in floods of tears.

I was always told I was unintelligent, and would not amount to much. He would sneeringly tell me I had let my family down as I definitely could not write or draw for that matter. My speech and pronunciation would also get ridiculed. I was thankful that I was quite good at Mathematics as he left me well alone when I was doing that. It was bliss. Biology too. My Mum was the one who loved biology, she was fascinated by all nature and life. My dad did not have a clue. So of course I sided with my Mum and tried to learn as much as I could and thrived in that subject area. I sided with her on just about everything really. That brought a whole lot of anger and aggression from my dad but I did not care.

I digress. So, writing was an issue and then dealing with any form of paper caused a weird strangeness from my dad. You know how pages in a book can get dogeared or newspaper pages can get slightly out of alignment. Oh, or those big old maps we used in the old days! Well, anything like that happening would send my dad stir crazy. I have had so many hidings because I could not fold a map back into its original small, flat, perfectly impossible leaflet sized shape with neat corners. I tried my best, honestly I did but it was never good enough for him. He would spend useless hours trying to teach me to do such things perfectly but I would switch off as I just could not understand why that was so important to him.

I have carried that fear with me through the years and although I am not too fussed about magazines, letters and newspapers getting crumpled, if you look at my small library of books, they are all in immaculate condition.

Back to the letter writing. He suddenly had an urge to write his Christmas letter yesterday. That sent a shiver down my spine. That annual letter used to cause my Mum and I such emotional disgust and distress, we absolutely dreaded it. It would always be all about him - the books he had read that year, the sermons he had written and 'performed' (as he used to say), his travels and the cricket and football teams he supported. Everything about him & his interests.

Then there would be the 'after thoughts' to fill the final paragraph of the page. Well, that is what my Mum and I called it. There would be a couple of sentences about my Mum. For example: 'She keeps busy with the housework. She enjoys knitting and watching TV'. Then he would endeavour to write a sentence about my husband and I to complete his work of art. That was our family's news for the whole year. My Mum and I always wondered what the recipients thought. We received letters from them full of their beloved family members' news with perhaps a short paragraph of the writer's own news at the end. It could not have been more different.

So, back to yesterday, he duly gave me his letter to type up. Joys! I took a deep breath and started trying to decipher his now quite shaky spidery cursive writing, still written with an olde worlde ink pen. I read the first line and realised I had tears in my eyes. Not from sadness this time but from laughter. He had written about his recent hospital visit and I really do not think he meant it to sound funny but to me, it did. I continued reading and wondered if I should change any of it at all.

Wow, look at me, even contemplating doing something like that! I added punctuation where it was desperately needed, I typed words that I thought sounded better than he had written and then I stopped myself. I thought no, this is his writing now and his friends and family need to realise this is where he is at in this stage of his life. So, it is not for me to change and improve his letter writing. I could not help myself altering two sentences about me though as he had either not remembered the facts or was blatantly making it up to make me look bad. He had written that I did not visit him for four days. That was true but there was a major reason why. The cardiac ward nurses had told me not to visit as I had a head cold and sore throat and he had just undergone a procedure.

Why did I feel the need to put myself in a better light. Is it that important? Or is it that I feel I have some power now to usurp his aged ramblings with reality. My Mum and I were always undermined by him but now I am strong enough to put the record straight. Something for me to ponder.

I was a bit nervous but I took him the typed copy and stated I had changed a few things. He read it aloud very slowly and asked me to print a number of copies for him. No comeback, no backlash? I was surprised but did as he asked. Today he has written the envelopes and I noticed he had omitted important parts of some addresses, so I let him know. Once he had quietly altered them, we posted them for him. He has sent them to his family who all know this latest news anyway. Oh well, at least they will be receiving festive greetings from him this year.

That phrase 'how the mighty have fallen' came to mind.

PS Had to smile....as I was about to publish this my husband arrived and took one look at it and pointed to the first line. I could not see it at first but I had omitted a word. I realised and started laughing. That confused him and he told me he was only trying to point out the error, he was not being nasty. [He knows all about my extreme anxiety and lack of self esteem regarding my writing.] I explained that I was laughing because without knowing it, he had done exactly what I have written about . But there is a major difference between my dad and my husband's ways. My husband is a kind and gentle soul.