I’ve just spent the last 2 hours helping Frank write a story. Frank hates writing. He’s always struggled with it being a causality of my home schooling during covid. Instead of getting his fundamentals under control we were running through the bush because that was easier than sitting down and home schooling a 5 year old. It’s such a shame because Frank is a great story teller. I like to think he gets it from me but it comes from his curiosity for the world. Very rarely does he see things at face value. He’s always trying to figure out how something works and why. 

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We needed a piece of writing for his interview at Ballarat Grammar next week. We can’t afford private school of course but we proceed as if we can because you never know what the future holds. We’ve never let our current situation get in the way of our desired outcome. It always seems like such a waste not to proceed with the best case scenario in our cross hairs. Frank had been happy to follow along until we told him we needed a piece of writing from him. He would’ve rather been home school again than pen a piece of creative text. 

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He freezes whenever he’s asked to write a story. His mind empties of any ideas or characters or situations and he panics. The longer you give him, the worse it gets. He has spent hours of class time staring at a blank page or screen not knowing what to write. I feel for him because, as his Mum, I know he is full of wonderful stories and ideas. He is literally overflowing with them. All he needs is someone to sit with him for two uninterrupted hours with 100% of their undivided attention in order to coax the story from him. An impossible request for the classroom but a delightful experience for a parent who is happy to let the dinner burn, then go cold while we write together.

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We needed a story. Something that he was passionate about and we found it at the bottom of a hole that he has been digging at school for nearly 6 years. It started as a simple hole that Frank and a few friends started to dig at lunch time. Over the years it got deeper until they had a large group of students who would all turn up at lunch time to help dig or see what was being dug up. At one stage the Grade 1 and 2’s thwarted their efforts by filling in the hole which became a school scandal but they recovered. A huge rock would bring students from all year levels together as they furiously tried to excavate it. It was so unyielding that most students returned back to the monkey bars or oval but a core team persevered. Frank would describe the joy when they finally removed the boulder to the shouts and cheers of everyone who’d followed their progress like the latest Netflix series. 

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With the extraction of his rock, came the story. I was his scribe as he told me what happened and made sure I captured it correctly. He didn’t like my edits but it was about him and not me so I didn't push them. He spent an hour carefully writing out each word in pencil on lined paper. He was so worried about messing it up that he could barely write the first line, the title, ‘The Hole’.  

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He wrote three pages of text and I’ve never seen him prouder when he stood up to read it to Matt who came home half way through, to now cold dinner because we got so distracted. I asked Frank to go through it in his head before reading it out loud. He quietly sat there rereading his own words. When he reached the end, he started crying. They were tears of joy at his memory and how important this story was to him. I started crying because I was so proud of him and I’d just seen Frank feel the power of sharing his story. He had been moved by his own words and that is a gift.

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This week I got all 62,500 words of my story to the editor for my book. There were many parts where I was brought to tears as I reread snippets from my life. Moments I wanted to capture that may only be of interest to me, or not. That’s why I’m consulting an editor, to gain another's perspective. I write about writing quite a bit in my book. About how important it has become to me over the years. My first blog started with ‘I hate writing’ which is what Frank muttered as we sat down together to write his story. If there is one thing I hope he understands quicker than me, it’s how powerful sharing our stories can be. Not just for others but for yourself as a reminder of just how great life can be.

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