Jessie Nace<\/p>\n
In search of lost time<\/p>\n
Spring 2015<\/p>\n
Turning Point Essay<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In 1983 I was eight years old, my parents had been separated on and off for about a year, however, my dad would come around and spend time with us. My mother, me, my baby sister and my 2 brothers lived in a three bedroom rambler right behind my grandmother. We were so close that we could take a path and be on her cul-de-sac. We had a big back yard where my brothers and I would spend hours digging to China. In first grade I had been diagnosed with dyslexia, and been transferred to a special school, for in those days not all elementary schools had special education staff.<\/p>\n
My dad was a man that found disabilities a waste of time, he felt that if you worked hard enough you could overcome anything. So at this particular visit, he made it his mission to cure me of my dyslexia. I don\u2019t really remember exactly why he chose to focus on spelling, however, this is where he thought he would start. So he got my spelling list from the school, talked to my teacher, whom I remember he said that he didn\u2019t like. I remember I didn\u2019t much like her either. She always seemed unhappy, like she didn\u2019t want to be where she was.<\/p>\n
So my dad has the list, we are seated at the dining room table with a new spiral notebook, several yellow office notebooks, new sharpened pencils, a timer and me an excited eight year old, who when I look back I think it had a lot to do with the attention from my dad. \u00a0Spelling words like elephant, telephone, and saxophone, they were called phonics, and at this point I didn\u2019t get them. So my dad started out by asking me to spell the word, \u201cspell elephant\u201d, dad said. \u201cE-L-A-F-A-N-T\u201d, \u201cno, try again\u201d\u00a0 \u201cE-L-E-F-A-N-T\u201d \u201cno, let\u2019s try this\u201d He took the notebook and wrote E-L-E-P-H-A-N-T, then said write this fifteen times. \u00a0Then he walked away. So I took my pencil and wrote the word, fifteen time. He came back and looked at the paper, then looked at me and then at the paper. I wasn\u2019t sure what I had done wrong, but I could tell by his furrowed brow, and pursed lips that something clearly was not right. \u201cJessica, what is this\u201d? He asked with a slight annoyance to his voice. I wasn\u2019t sure what he was referring to, maybe I had not written it large enough, or not clearly enough. \u201cDaddy, I copied what you wrote\u201d.\u00a0 \u201cNo you didn\u2019t, the E, P and N are all backward, if you copied it exactly then they wouldn\u2019t be\u201d. Why are they all backward? \u201cI am sorry daddy, I don\u2019t know why I do that\u201d.<\/p>\n
So we spend the next three hours writing out the letters until they were no longer backward. Then I practiced writing the words. \u201cJessica spell elephant\u201d, my dad said later, after my hand hurt, and I could barley see the paper.\u00a0 \u201cE-l-E-P-H-A-N-T\u201d I replied, slowly spelling out each letter.\u00a0 \u201cGood, now spell telephone, my dad said, trying to catch me off guard. \u201cT-E-L-E-P-H-O-N-E\u201d, I spelled with a smile on my face. It wasn\u2019t just the words, it was the idea that I had gotten my dad\u2019s help. That he spends much time helping me, yeah, it was exhausting, but he was hardly ever around so this was to my eight year old self a win. \u00a0There were other words, on the list, however the only two that stood out in my mind were elephants and telephone.<\/p>\n
Later, when I had been in bed for a while, I saw someone come into my room with a sheet over their head like a ghost, they whispered \u201cJessica spell elephant, half asleep I replied \u201cE-L-E-P-H-A-N-T\u201d.\u00a0 He was so excited that he threw the sheet up over his head, hit the glass light bulb cover and broke it with his back. My mom heard the commotion and came into the room. My dad was bleeding, my mom was saying \u201cBill you\u2019re bleeding, he didn\u2019t seem to care, because he listened to me spell elephant over and over again.<\/p>\n
I never spelled elephant wrong again and with hard work I eventually didn\u2019t have dyslexia. (Except for maybe when I am getting somewhere, direction is sometimes a challenge, but hey, that\u2019s what google maps are for) \u00a0\u00a0The turning point was that no matter what roadblocks got in my way I could overcome them with hard work no matter what it was I wanted to accomplish. I remember how to spell elephant whenever I feel like giving up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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