and since it seems I’ve finally made a message board for hot tall women fetishists I think the biggest condads of all goes to me.

Pink sky, 2005

I’ll be emceeing this year’s New York’s Funniest Reporter Contest for the New York Underground Comedy Festival in September. Carve the date in your arm if you can. Thanks.

The second wedding of Pat and Jerry Stadtmiller, 2005

to say, “Your dad’s on TV. They’re reading off names of soldiers killed, and he’s ringing a bell as part of the ceremony.”

This made me want to look into my specially marked “Dad” file to see what was in there. What I found was the first story that I ever wrote about growing up with him for a class assignment in junior English. I wrote this when I was 15. Blinding sentiment, crushing amounts of adjectives and embarrassing self-grandiosity aside, the essay still means a lot to me.

Truthfully, I think it may be the first time I ever really got into “the zone” when writing something. God, sorry about those quotes, too. But really, it’s something I have no trouble doing now, just being there, writing like myself, but it was one of those defining moments in writing for me where I learned to craft an illustrative story and not let my own censors destroy pure, unfiltered (but with enough subconscious knowledge of structure to inform) writing.

Here is the story, written 16 years ago.

***

“My Dad”

By Amanda Stadtmiller

With confident swings of his cane, my father walks toward me. His face breaks into a grin, beaming at the pleasure of my company. This man has taught me an invaluable lesson, I realize, grasping his hand.

His crooked grin reveals the jarring disfiguration of his face. Though his face has been skillfully reconstructed, I cringe when I think of him, my father, my daddy, arriving at a hospital somewhere in Vietnam, with half of his face shattered by the bullets of a sniper.

With his right hand, he extends his collapsible cane with the ease of a dancer. His happiness radiates by my side. I squeeze his hand gratefully. His powerful grasp gently tightens, a loving response to my affection.

“Here we are,” he observes. Ninety-five percent blind, confronted by a world of darkness and blurred images, my father realizes we have arrived at the restaurant before I do. Compensating for his lack of sight, my father counts steps, memorizes streets and cities and shopping malls, and perceives the sounds often ignored by others. Since childhood, I have imagined his mind as expansive as a road map and as aware as the sensitive antennae of an insect, forever interpreting the muddled signals of the world.

As he reaches out to open the door, I smile in quiet appreciation. “This way, Madame Stadtmiller,” he exclaims with an exaggerated bow. His courtesy is often juggled with this energetic humor–light and intentional.

“Merci, monsieur,” I playfully respond.

As we settle into our seats, I notice two teenagers gaping tactlessly. I am not bitter. I learned to resist the temptation to glare at such people long ago. It reduces me to their level and greets ignorance with spite. If I had any other father, I would most likely stare too. But my father has taught me the insignificance of superficial appearances and the value of internal beauty. However, I cannot help wishing that these kids could meet my father and understand the obstacles my father has tackled in his life after half his face was blasted apart as a young man.

I can remember being eight years old and realizing for the first time that my dad was different from other dads. Walking briskly to elementary school, hand in hand with my father, I noticed others staring. I smiled at them, but soon realized the futility of my attempts. Their eyes concentrated on my father, not me. A wide-eyed second-grader asked my dad what happened to his face.

Kneeling down to reach eye-level with the child, he answered him slowly with the profound honesty with which the little boy had approached him. “My eye got broken,” he said.

The child’s miniature face pinched up in concern for him. “Does it hurt real bad?”

His face broke into a grin. “Nope, not a bit.” The boy’s chubby cheeks ballooned out in delight at this response.

Today, at the restaurant, my eyes scan the menu in front of me as my dad describes what sort of food he would like. In genuine concentration, my father runs his fingers through his carefully groomed hair. I marvel at the extent of his beauty ritual. A concealed metal plate lies beneath his brown curls, and my father is content to keep it that way. Special injections into his scalp each month assure him that he will not go bald. I think such concern for appearance is remarkable, considering he has not seen himself in about 25 years.

After his mouth was torn apart, one-third of his tongue was shot off, all but 10 of his teeth were removed, and he lost all feeling in his chin. Today he wears dentures that he keeps in impeccable condition. After the sniper’s bullets mangled the right side of my dad’s face, plastic surgeons sewed up the right socket with skin, built him a new nose from part of his hip bone, and created a new tear duct to replace the destroyed one in his left eye.

As the waiter approaches, my heart warms with love and admiration for my father. Not only has he confronted his handicaps head on, but he has been a wonderful husband and father as well. After having his face ravaged by the brutal indifference of war, he faced his problems day by day and learned to live with his shortcomings.

My father’s unique perception of his environment provokes in me an enhanced sensitivity to the world and its beauty. I see my surroundings differently. I do not judge on accepted standards of looks, but perceive substance and eloquence. I express this aesthetic vulnerability in my writings. I silently dedicate them to the man who taught me the necessity of words to convey beauty in the absence of pictures.

Pat and Jerry Stadtmiller, 1972

“Sgt. Wells’s New Skull” reminds me so much of my dad’s saga–the head injury, the sniper attack, the recovery against all odds, even the language from the physicians of never having seen a patient quite that bad off before.

Brian Mockenhaupt placed as a finalist in the 2007 National Magazine Writing Awards for the feature, and it’s well deserved. If your attention span is a basically a gnat’s like mine, force yourself to concentrate and take yourself into this world. It’s worth it, and reminds you of just how far away from Iraq you are and aren’t.

Brian also had the cover of Esquire a few months back called “What I’ve Learned” about this completely hardcore and badass triple amputee. I only finally read this now, and it definitely penetrates your brain. Whatever you’re complaining about, take a second to just feel your fingertips and toes and flood yourself with gratitude.

It also reminds me of one of the last articles I wrote when I used to write profiles about physicians and scientists for Northwestern University. This man, Dr. Dudley Childress, who is a pioneer in the prosthetics and orthotics realm, was a human being of absolutely the finest caliber. The profile I wrote on him a few years back is here, and consider this: he developed the first functional myoelectric arm in history (meaning, for someone who has lost a hand, he created a mechanical device synched into the actual electrical impulses of the arm, restoring the functions of precious mobility). Imagine that.

That’s what he did, and that’s what he does.

Bright eyes, 2005

I had a rough start to what could have been a really shitty night, but I was hellbent and determined not to let it get me down so I lamely typed in “joy” in YouTube because I’m 9 or let’s see, 15, and hit upon these songs, which I tried to listen to–to really, really listen to–and when all was said and done, the spell was broken, and the evening ended up being nothing short of pure delight.

So here is the joy I found.

And just remember.

Keep going, and let go.

and he’ll be better soon.

All my love to Luke.

He is perpetually awesome.