Saturday, November 10, 2018

Sunday's stories... on Saturday

This week's writing prompt by Sunday's Whirlagig includes these words to use in our prose...

first, write, name, help, white, page, anything, letters, outside, senteces, written, by

 

She knew this was going to take a while... and observed as he struggled to hold the pencil at first, trying to control it.


Her heart broke with love for this one... so sweet and sincere. They both looked down at the blank, white page together.


She wrote his name on her sheet, with capital letters. Easier to copy. She was careful not to write anything too complicated as it is easier in the beginning to understand and master  block letters. She so wanted to help  but she was new at this teaching business.


She remembered learning to read and write, how it felt like magic to finally unlock the key to the written page.


She grew up sitting on her mum's lap, listening to stories, and following her mum's finger trailing over the words as they were read. She longed to be so powerful!


She remembered singing the letters, sometimes as one long word, elemenohpee! then she remembered the feel of that thick paper tablet, the one with the two solid lines and a dotted line, the way the letters looked growing on the blackboard as her teacher formed them. The aha moment when she realized the sound they represented went together to make the words in her story book! Yea!

Magic.

Now she could teach others to do that. What a gift! A gift to her to see them excited about it! Forming sentences, then paragraphs, and next stories and reports. "Written by.... fill in their name here!" Budding authors and poets. The magic of words!


First they had to control their fingers and pressure on the pencil as they carefully traced over her letters ...




Yep, it wouldn't be a quick process but Mr Johnson would have the same pride at relearning to write after his stroke as he did when he learned the first time. She would be just as proud of him too.

8 comments:

sonja said...

very nice, with sweet ending and up to the last paragraph,
i thought you were in a foreign country with young students...

Linda @ kokaquilts said...

Oh my, a very beautiful piece, I loved the ending. I worked closely with people who had strokes as a nurse and then as a volunteer too after retiring, with a speech group for those with strokes living at home. The magic of writing, reading, & speech are things we all take for granted, until we can't do it.

Ann said...

Lovely ending, LeeAnna.

Mary in Boulder said...

Nice surprise ending!

Su-sieee! Mac said...

LA, your story has so much love and depth. The kind that gives me goosebumps.

Old Egg said...

This really is a beautiful piece of writing LeeAnna.

Evi Erlinda said...

well written. love it
greeting - evi erlinda

Miriam said...

As your essay began, I was transported to Monroe School in San Francisco in the late 40s with our principal, Mrs. O'Kane teaching our penmanship lessons. I remembered the newsprint and our round, fat pencils... and then I was humbled by your poignant ending.
Lovely essay.