My grandfather, my mother’s father, was a handsome man, his gray hair swept back, wearing kelly-green golf slacks, blue Nike running shoes with orange swooshes. Or holding his monkey-headed cane with the ruby eyes, wearing a pale blue cardigan, reading glasses around his neck. Or on the badminton court, a racquet in his hand.
My mother was just here, visiting us in Oregon, and she brought a letter she’d found, that my grandfather had written to me. It was typewritten, and in response to a number of stories that I’d written, that I’d given him to read. It is dated March 17, 1992; here are some excerpts:
You show vivid imagination and a unique touch. You must keep at the job. Grandmother tells of the premier watercolor painter, Gerhard Miller of Sturgeon Bay: he went to New York to study under the best known teacher of the time, who advised him, “After you complete about a thousand pictures, you will pretty much know how.”
I have few suggestions because I don’t know enough. So far I miss the nurturing love interest—that’s been paramount in my life. I need to feel more empathy with your characters.
To put things on paper has proliferating consequences.