An Open Letter to My Father

Dear Dad,

Remember the novel you outlined, the one based on Grandpop's life, the one that you recorded on several old-fashioned cassette tapes?  This is back in '92, when you were dying of cancer.  Well, it took me a long time to listen to those tapes, a very long time.  But when I finally did, I couldn't believe what it is that you had wrought.  This story of three Sicilian brothers who emigrate to American in 1910 is a powerful, human saga of strangers lost in a strange land, finding to find their place in a world so alien it might as well be Mars.

I know your intention when you made these tapes was for me to someday write the story, and the I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get to this point.  I simply wasn't "ready."  I wasn't ready to hear your voice again after all this years, wasn't ready to write a book so far out of my wheelhouse, and wasn't ready to commit to a project this big and, frankly, this intimidating.

But I'm 58 now, just eight years younger than you were when you left us, and I'm ready now.

So, it's with a glad heart that I report topping the 60,000 word mark this morning on the novel you outlined.  So far, it has no title but there's plenty of time for that.  Right now, it's enough to be actually, finally, blessedly bringing to life the characters you invented.  This is your book, Dad.  But it's also mine, and I've brought much of my own personality and writing style to the work.  Thirty years of authoring novels, of telling stories, has brought me to this moment.

I can't promise this particular story will ever be published, though I will absolutely try.  I can't promise it'll be the best work I've ever done, though as of right now I believe it is.

But I can promise you, with gratitude and love, that I will tell it.

Thank you, Dad.  I miss you.

​- Ty