by It’s not often that one family can inspire you at not just one, but two different crossroads in your life.
But it happened to me. And my experiences with the Dossett family were nearly 30 years apart.
John Tyler Dossett is a successful local artist. He has completed 370 paintings. He has raised tens of thousands of dollars for charities, including the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation for paralysis research and Relay for Life (seeking a cure for cancer). The proceeds he has made from selling his paintings will touch the lives of literally millions of people suffering from life-altering diseases.
John has met (and flirted with) Julie Newmar. He has horsed around with Lou Ferrigno. Albert Pujols and Tony La Russa both own some of his artwork.
I had the pleasure of meeting John and conducting an interview for an article I did for the paper about his upcoming art exhibit at the Bethalto K of C Hall this Saturday. It also gave me the chance to get reacquainted with his father, Terry.
Terry Dossett was my sixth-grade teacher. Since the age of three (when I learned to read and write), I loved to write stories, but Terry was the one who awakened what I would call a “passion” for putting a pen to paper (we still used quill and parchment back then). If I remember right, we were only his first or second class since transitioning to elementary school from teaching high school classes, and he always treated our class like we were older than we were. To him, we were not little kids, just shorter versions of his past students, deserving of more respect and accountable for a higher level of performance.
There was more creative writing done in his class than in any previous grades by far, and I loved it. I think I even still have many of those stories tucked away somewhere (just the thought of reading them now makes me cringe).
At the time, Terry told me he thought I was tremendously talented and said he knew he would? someday see my stuff in print (to this day, he has much more faith in my writing ability than I do!). What I did not know was just how impressed he was and how complimentary he was when sharing his thoughts with other school faculty.
In a way, the privilege of being able to share the story of John with readers feels very much like coming full circle, paying his father Terry back in a small way for the path he helped to place me on.
Honestly, when I met John, I was experiencing a “rut” in several areas of my life, one of which was a dry spell with my writing. After hearing about his life and the obstacles he overcomes on a DAILY basis, I actually felt a little stupid about some of the things that have been holding me back.
You see, John cannot stand. He cannot feed or dress himself. Saying even a word or two takes great effort and a lot of patience on his part, sometimes having to repeat a word countless times to get his message across. In fact, the paintings that have helped so many people are only possible when John’s mother, Muffy, unstraps his left hand and holds his elbow for him as he prepares to create.
John has Lesch-Nyhan syndrome. And he does not let it define who he is.
Terry challenged an 11-year-old me, asking, “What defines you?” Nearly 30 years later, his son John asked me the same thing.
What defines you?
