Day One.

Today is Day One.

Day one of “Shut Up and Write!”  a group I found on the MeetUp app for people  who want
a little group accountability to get them to put fingers to keys and produce something.  

A friend of mine who has written quite a bit, self-published a bit, pressures me periodically by
emailing me links to “Get published online!”  I tell him I haven’t even written anything yet.

So, here I sit.

At a table with a guy named Paul who is writing science fiction for adults this time-- he usually writes for
teens. 

What will I write about, you ask?

My dad.

(Quick glance up to the ceiling as my eyes well up and my throat closes in on the lemonade I’m trying,
with difficulty, to swallow.)

My sons want to know about the grandpa they never met.   I can sympathize. It’s a strange generational
coincidence that my boys’ mother’s dad died when she was in her 20’s, and that her own mother’s dad
died when she was a wispy 10-year old-- a Greek-Lithuanian mix, in Chicago, an only child to a mother who
essentially, albeit temporarily, deserted her after the tragic 1949 explosion in a Brach’s Candy factory that
took her husband from her, violently, unexpectedly. 

Perhaps I should urge my mom to write about the grandfather I never met.  Since she was still so young
when he died, she has few clear memories about him. I was 26 when mine died.  Many clearer memories
are at my disposal. So here I sit. To write them. For my sons.