Feb 13, 2018
A good kind of exhausted.
Today my nephew Zach came by again for help on on his English paper. Since I have no plans for kids of my own, visits like these are pretty much the extent of my paternal contributions to the world. Fortunately, I have the time to help him right now.
His sister doesn’t often need help but I was glad to roll up my sleeves for her programming course last term when she called, tearful and frustrated. They both help look after their little brother, Noah, whose attention span is measured in nanoseconds and whose handwriting is best described as a form of cryptography. This one for sure has a long row to hoe.
Zach tried college once before a couple of years ago but wasn’t really ready for it then. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief on his high school graduation day — ADHD has made learning tough for him. A couple of years landscaping and busing tables in a local fish camp made him think pretty seriously about going back to school to pursue his dreams.
Zach is a gentle young man with an intense and sincere desire to help others. I don’t see a mean bone in him and am proud of the person he’s grown up to be. I figure the time I spend helping him get the education he needs to become a thoughtful policeman or devoted youth worker will multiply many times over one day.
During his first semester’s writing, the assignments were all about extracting the main points from selections in a very boring textbook, constructing dry theses, and regurgitating even more lifeless essays into being. I could have easily written his papers for him, but then Zach wouldn’t have learned a damned thing. Instead, I settled in with him for the long-haul and taught him the routine. Together we have slogged through note-taking, summarizing, re-stating, organizing, synthesizing, drafting, editing and lots of repeating.
This time around my nephew knows that there’s a process to writing. He doesn't have the same deer-in-the-headlights look mostly because the writing topics are wide-open and there’s no reading comprehension involved. Every thought and word he writes is supposed to come from his own ideas. As he writes about coaching his basketball team, I point out the coincidence that I’m also his coach — in writing.
It was around 11am this morning when Zachery popped in, his paper fresh with suggested edits from the college writing center. Now let me tell you . . . that was an “A” paper 3 days ago.
However . . . it wasn’t exactly what Zach’s instructor really wanted, at least according to the helpful lady at the writing center. Since I can’t go to class with him, I must rely of my nephew’s occasionally incomplete understanding of his assignments. This morning, we got some clarification.
Four tedious hours and one Pizza Hut order later, we printed out the “Final Copy” of his first paper this term. The paper’s still an “A”, maybe even an “A+” and now very likely the kind we’re told his instructor likes to see.
This little story has taken me less than hour to tap out — edits, photos and all and telling this tale was relaxing for me. Zach will likely laugh when he reads that part — writing as relaxation.
I wish I could make writing as simple and effortless for my nephew as it is for me. Although he’ll likely never compose the great American novel, I believe if we can get him through this term, Zach’s writing skills will be enough for him to survive.
If he didn’t need my help, though, I would lose a little bit of my purpose and the sense of joy and satisfaction that comes with it.
I know I’ll experience a vicarious thrill next week when Zach struts in, head held high, his grade “A” paper in hand. When he walks across the stage to pick up his associate’s degree in a couple of years, I expect to be even more thrilled.
Right now I’m exhausted, but it’s a good kind of exhausted.
