Remembering can be part of writing: GJ says!

It was probably in the late 1970's. The scene was my class in high school composition, an elective course. A young girl, probably 16'sh, sat at a desk by a window and often looked out that window, deep in thought. She wasn't writing much at all, I noticed. I tried gently prompting her a little, but it didn't do much good. Finally, I asked her to see me after class for "just a second." She did stay, and luckily for both of us, actually had a little extra time. I asked her if she knew why it was that she couldn't seem to "get off the ground?" She said she didn't know. I asked if anything was going on in her life that made it difficult? "Yes," she said, "I just lost my grandpa." (Teachers are rarely prepared for such replies.) After some awkwardness, we tried to get back on track, and I asked, "What first comes to your mind when you think of your Grandpa?" She didn't hesitate a moment, and said, "His hands." "Great," I almost shouted! Tell me, on paper, what it was about his hands that caught your attention." She actually smiled in relief and said she would. She went home, wrote a moving little essay, and handed it in the following day. It was a beginning that led to more and more essays that were, mostly, simple memoirs about grandpa. I'm sure she eventually earned an A.