In which I attempt a very difficult writing assignment. . .

. . . and am embarrassed to post it, but I have to post it, because a typical brat over at nonsensical text asked for some writing prompts recently. I told her about Bub and Pie's torture device--I mean writing assignment--which she used to give to one of her writing classes. The assignment was to write a 500+ word autobiography. Very shortly a typical brat had hers, vagueness personified, up and I have been shamed into writing my own. I can't suggest a writing prompt for someone I am unwilling to do, can I?

So, while this feels like I am getting ready to go for a ride on a scary roller coaster, sweaty palms and all, here, without further ado, is my 500+ word autobiography:

Driving as quickly as he dared over an Oklahoma country road after Thanksgiving dinner, my grandfather escorted my mother to the small town hospital hoping against hope his next grandchild would not be born in his car–which I wasn’t, because my mother managed to wait until she got to the hospital for the general anaesthesia it was common to use in the mid-60s–for the circumstances of my birth provided enough drama for him: my mother, his oldest child, had already given birth almost six years earlier to an illegitimate child, a boy, and my parents had seen fit to end their marriage practically before it had begun, my mother barely pregnant--not a very good track record for a preacher’s daughter--and he didn’t know yet that in spite of the circumstances, I would bring him much joy, first for the love that we shared for each other, the love of any grandfather for his grandchild, and my love for the only grandfather I ever knew--who in many ways was also a substitute father to me--and next for the love we shared for the Lord, a love that began for him twenty or so years before my birth and for me which started a few days before the early winter morning when I was fifteen and I got up early–so that it would be just the two of us–to tell him I had asked Christ to be my Savior and to ask him if he would please baptize me, to which, of course, he said yes, baptizing me just a few days later at a small Free Will Baptist church in Southern California, although this love was not without conflict and pain--the pain for me coming when I was seventeen years old and he and my grandmother moved back to Oklahoma after years in California and I cried for the fear that I would never see him again, especially because of his heart problems, and for him the conflict that came with my not choosing to go to a Free Will Baptist church and college, instead opting for an independent Christian church and an affiliated small, private college nearby–that conflict and pain, however, did not interfere with our love for each other, and I did get to see him many times after he moved and he eventually accepted that my faith would take roots in a different church and he took solace in the fact that the doctrines of his and my churches were actually closely aligned and even sent me a copy of his favorite commentary of the book of Romans while I was studying that book of the Bible during college--a class in which I am still proud to have received an A+ grade on my final paper, along with the comment, from an esteemed, yet wacky professor, that it was “suitable for publication”--and as the years went by, my grandfather’s health worsened and though he lived to see me married, he died before I finished an undergraduate degree in Literary Studies, had my two children and helped plant a new church, but I am grateful for having known him, for his love and for his getting my mom to the hospital on time that Thanksgiving day in 1964.

And Professor B&P? The following is for you:

• Final word count: 549
• Flesch-Kincaid grade level: 16
• Passive voice (% of finite verb phrases): 4
• Sentence complexity (100 = very complex): 81
• Vocabulary complexity: 16