Dan made it sound pretty
I may have said this a million times (actually I'm pretty sure I have). Dan was the writer in this family. You know that line from the musical Hamilton "why do you write like your running out of time? Write day and night like your running out of time?" That was Dan. He was always writing something, pieces of children's books, counseling essays, theological essays, poems, school papers, work papers. You name it Dan wrote it.
As a result we had papers scattered all over our house, not only because he wrote them but because he collected other peoples writing. Anything he could get his hands on about anything he was interested in, which was practically everything, the exception being computers and cars, he didn't care about those. We had over 2,000 books in our house, an actual library room. Piles and piles of papers; things he brought home from classes and work shops, fellow students papers, stuff he found on the internet that he printed off so he wouldn't loose it. He added it to the stacks and stacks of papers you know in a safe spot.
A pointless endeavor I was continually trying to organize those papers, but them in some sense or order, things he wrote in one stack, theology papers in another, counselling papers in another, and a pile for 'I don't know what the hell this is. I saw the musical Hamilton three years after Dan died, in one scene Hamilton's acquaintances are throwing all his papers up into the air and he is scrambling after them to pick them up. Papers are flying everywhere, papers cover the ground everywhere. I couldn't stop laughing because it reminded me so much of Dan, always papers everywhere.
There's a reason Dan wrote so much; he was great at it. Truly one of the best writers I have ever seen. He made everything sound good, and he did it easily. In college he would write the perfect paper in an hour or less. I would spend hours, even days on the same paper and it was never as good. Then I would make Dan correct it for grammar and spelling and what not. My papers often looked like this:
Sally ran to the store. (make that sound pretty)
and he would
Sally ran to the store as fast as she could go, filling her lungs with the spring air.
Ya thats not anywhere close to as good as Dan would make t but you get my point. I always said I would have flunked out of college if Dan hadn't corrected my papers for me. It was the same for Christmas letters and party invitations. I would get them started, because if we waited for my procrastinator husband to do you would all still be waiting for the invitation to Baby Girls first birthday. That was a good one. I would type something up on the computer
Come to Baby Girl's very first birthday party.
Shes's gonna eat cake for the first time
it's gonna be really cute
Please join us
"hey Dan I wrote an invitation to Baby Girls first birthday party, its up on the computer can you take a look and make it sound pretty" I swear he sat there for less the twenty minutes and this is what he came up with:
First she squirmed
And then she wiggled
Soon she smiled
And then she giggled
Our happy baby started to crawl
And then stand up
(and then to fall)
Now she walks a little ways
But still to come is the greatest of days
For this she waited and waited still…
Waited and waited and waited until…
Mom and Dad finally said it was OK!
The baby’s gonna eat cake today!
I loved his writing.
You may not have heard but I wrote a book. Dan always wanted to write books but he never got around to it, he ran out of time, he died. I was never interested in writing a book. I was terrible at making things sound pretty. Luckily for me its not a pretty sounding book. I wrote a book, without Dan's help, without him correcting the grammar and spelling, without him making things sound pretty, with out any input at all form him. I wrote a book about him, without him. What a weird world I live in now.
I would like to introduce you to my book, my book about Dan, my book about our grief in loosing him. I want to give you a beautiful eloquent introduction but that was Dan's job. That's how Dan wrote, thats not me, thats not how I write. So I'm Just going to say;
Here's the link to my book, buy it if you want.
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