Notes from the Past

It's funny what appears sometimes. Here I am, diving back in to my fiction manuscript, and I want to file an article I had clipped from last year, one that I had simply stuck into my pile of papers. I pull out the folder and it falls open to reveal an old newspaper clipping from 2003.

What's funny about this is that my protagonist has a "father issue" and this is one of the few artifacts I have from my own father who always seemed to disapprove of whatever I was doing in my life, including writing (I wasn't writing the "right" material). Attached to the article was a note from my father:

My father died a little over five years later, in 2008; finding his handwritten note along with the article made me feel closer to him. And, even though he never said he was proud of me, maybe he was...just a little. He was encouraging me, and I take that as a good sign.