Daily Notes--July 31

We moved when I was 9.  I was in a school I loved.  My grandmother and grandfather lived on the second floor of our two family house.  The neighborhood was full of families I had known my entire life.  I was happy.

Then I was not until I got married at 21.  That new house, that new neighborhood, the new families--we just didn't fit.

I went into fifth grade and was assigned the task of drawing an elephant.  I didn't know how.  I didn't know I was an artist at that point in life. Never drawing anything.  Just playing and laughing and getting a very pretty dress to wear on my ninth birthday the year before.

My dad was an unhappy man.  One child was okay.  Four was a nightmare.  So he was usually drunk when he got home from work.  But that day he wasn't and he got out a sheet of newspaper and taught me how to draw an elephant.  Not a small one.  It filled the page.  A big sheet of paper. He drew it.  Then we drew one together and then I drew one by myself.

He didn't get angry or yell or hit.  He and I just drew.  When he thought my drawing was "good enough" I rolled it up to take to school.

My new teacher accused me of copying it.  Yes, they did that sort of shaming back then. 1956.

Forced me to draw it again, in front of the entire-- new to me-- snickering class. Who had know each other for always.  Like I had at the old house..  My old school. But I would hope we never acted that way.  It felt new to me.  And mean.

They stopped snickering and the Teacher was angry that she hadn't gotten the best of me.  I drew a perfect elephant.  Even better than the one I had thought was the best.  I heard my dad's voice as I drew.

Just about the only nice thing I can remember about him in my childhood.  I told him about drawing the elephant as I held his hand as he slipped from life into death about 10 years ago. Even though he wasn't a nice person, he was my dad.  And I wanted him to go into the beyond with a happy, loving story.