Ralph Godfrey

Professor Cohl

FIQWS 10105 HA 9

1 October 2018

Hand To God

            It wasn’t until I was in 4^th grade when I changed my whole outlook on what being a “writer” actually meant. I didn’t understand how it worked or how people built up the courage to put their ideas and experiences on paper. It wasn’t until I was 10 years old I understood a writer wasn’t just a guy with a fancy beard or a lady who had too many cats. It wasn’t just a comic book author who made dialogue for colorful and animated characters, or a historian who with great passion continued the legacy of our founding fathers through textbooks to inform our generations to come. A writer can be anyone.

It was on a hot spring Friday afternoon. I returned to my desk after running around the school playground. I anxiously sat in my chair and uncontrollably tapped my left leg, as I impatiently waited for my teacher to assign the classroom math or history homework for the weekend “to keep us busy and not on the video game all day long,” as my mother liked to phrase it. Ms. Beth took the chalk from her bag and in big bold letters wrote on the chalkboard “CREATIVE WRITING.” Creative writing? Isn’t that something you do outside of school when you feel… creative? And don’t only people with big imaginations partake in such an activity?

Since we were only 9 and 10, our teacher walked us through step by step about the expectations of this assignment, “Class for this weekend I would like you to create a creative writing piece. This means there are no wrong answers, unless the page is blank. Use your imagination and write about a moment in your life that stands out to you. If you close your eyes, you can picture that moment minute by minute. It can be your first time you rode a bike, a favorite birthday or even a simple car ride with your mom. Whatever it is, just make sure you go into great detail about it. Have a little fun with it! Make things up and use your imagination along the way.”

I couldn’t speak for the rest of the class, but for me, her speech was beyond over whelming. No one has ever asked me to recall a memory of mine. I have none! I have barely been around for a decade. What memory could I have that would be remotely enlightening to anyone above my age. Most of the things I’ve done are pretty substandard and not worth writing about. Who’s going to take me seriously? I took this way of thinking and made it my mission to write something unique about me. Write about omething that no one else can come up with because it only belongs to me. So then what is it? Again, I am only 10. I have not experienced anything “outstanding” other than walking home to school by myself (keep in mind I live around the corner.)

Since nothing came to mind, I started looking for things in my room to write about. Toys and video games I immediately crossed off my list because they were not “school appropriate” as my mom would say. That leaved me with my bed, pillows and blankets. No interesting memories there (at least not yet.) I refused to ask my parents for help because then I’d be using their creativity and not mine. I grew frustrated. I clenched up my fists and started punching my bed furiously. About 11 punches in, and a light bulb popped into my head. I finally found something to write about!

The answer was right in front of me all along. My creative writing piece was going to be about the big scar on my left hand. I got it when I was 4 years old in a Toys R’Us, nearly losing the entire hand. I loved telling this story and still do till this day. 10 out of 10 times I tell someone this story, the person’s reaction is priceless.

I felt warm inside and I was inspired to write. I could picture the whole day like it was yesterday. No need to make things up along the way. The story itself was breath taking enough. In great detail, I talked about how my pinky was nearly sliced off and how my dad nearly fell down himself hurrying to my rescue. I then wrote about my most vivid memory, which was the benevolent Toys R’Us employee who came to my rescue and gave me a bottle of coke for my troubles. Without missing a beat, I went into great detail about how I kept fainting in and out of consciousness on my ride to the hospital as I remembered one minute I was in the back of the ambulance and the next I woke up in a in a turquoise room where doctors aggressively stitched my hand back together without Anastasia since I was too young.

It was a day to truly remember, and a day to truly write about. I was so proud to hand something in that felt like a creation of my own. From MY self inflicted accident, to MY vivid memories in the toy store and hospital and to the scar that remains on MY left hand. But more than anything, I learned that day what it meant to document something that I felt was important and enlighten others to see it through my eyes, or simply become a “writer.” What I wrote about didn’t have to be as breath taking as almost losing a hand in a Toys R’Us. It could’ve been about anything. As long as I took the time and discipline to sit down and put ideas, interpretations and thoughts on paper for the audience to see from my very eyes, I was a writer.