The Open Door
This is a story about one of the first moments I remember being seen as a creative person. I didn’t understand its importance then. I do now.
Memories - Graphite on paper - 2023
My dad has dementia now. I struggle with that.
Some days, it feels like I’m standing beside someone who is slowly drifting out to sea—still here, still visible, but no longer reachable in the way he once was.
When I was around eleven, long before dementia had a name in our family, I was living in Thompson, Manitoba. It was there that I first felt the pull toward becoming a writer. Not as a hobby, but as something that mattered. Something that felt like mine. Even then, I had the sense that I wanted to let the world know who I was and what I cared about, though I didn’t yet have the language for it.
That year, I was excused from English class for half the year. Instead, I was placed in a small group of students tasked with writing and producing a radio play that would eventually air on the local radio station. It felt exciting. Like someone had seen something in me I was only beginning to see in myself.
One weekend afternoon, I sat alone in my bedroom, hunched over a Royal manual typewriter. The keys were firm and required intention. The clack‑clack sound was steady and focused, filling the room. I was writing the script for the radio play, completely absorbed, certain that what I was doing was important, even if I didn’t yet understand the full impact it would have.
At some point, the bedroom door slowly opened.
My dad peeked in. He gave me a smile—a real smile—and then told me how proud he was of me for working on something so exciting.
That was not something my dad did often. He wasn’t unkind, just quiet with his emotions. Practical. Reserved. His approval, when it came, was subtle and measured. So this moment mattered more than I understood at the time.
I can’t quite remember how I acknowledged him. Probably with a nod or a quick response. I turned back to the typewriter, intending to finish what I had planned to do that day. I didn’t tell him what his words meant to me.
I suppose I didn’t know to.
Now, years later, I watch my dad struggle to exist the best way he can. I see the confusion in his eyes. The effort it takes to stay present. The way the world no longer meets him where he is. It is sad, and I still don’t know how to fully accept this in my own mind.
That small moment in Thompson—the open door, the Royal typewriter, the quiet pride in his voice—returns to me with startling clarity.
My regret is simple. I wish I had been mature enough to tell him how much his admiration and encouragement meant to me. To let him know that his words made a real impact, not just then, but throughout my life. That moment helped shape who I became.
I didn’t say it then.
So I say it now.
I love you, Dad.
Memory doesn’t always stay intact. Sometimes it fades. Sometimes it shifts. Sometimes it returns unexpectedly, carrying more meaning than it once did. This piece, and the artwork that accompanies it, are part of my ongoing effort to notice what remains.