A few days ago Dawn over at Not Going Postal posted about a writing prompt she was given as a class assignment.
Using the directions provided here, you’re supposed to write a 15 sentence paragraph about someone whom you never specifically name.

You stand there young and slim with a gleam in your eye, unsure of what the future holds but ready to find out.   I stare back at the black and white photograph, at faces so familiar and foreign to me all at once, and the photographer in me can’t help but be curious about who was behind that lens.  With an arm around her waist, you both seem confident and sure, yet there is a gentleness in your touch that defies your rugged physique.  As I wonder what you were thinking, what you were saying, somewhere in the back of my mind I find the sound of your voice and I can hear it as clear as a bell.  It amazes me that I haven’t heard your voice in nearly twenty-two years, yet I can still hear your hearty, robust laugh.  I miss you and crave-oddly-your smell.  I remember you holding me once after I’d gotten lost, and as my tears soaked your white undershirt I was comforted by your smell: sawdust laced with peppermint.  I wish I could remember more about you, and I’m always surprised when a random memory pops into my mind.   The smell of sawdust, the sight of a poodle, the sound of heavy machinery: my senses prod my brain to dust off old memories.   Right now I am weathered and weary, wistful for simpler days of my childhood, when a piece of peppermint from your pocket could cure even the biggest of my woes.  Time, however, marches on and continues to dilute the effectiveness of candy against my problems.  (Although I must admit that even now a whiff of mint can still calm my soul.)  But I realize now that it wasn’t the smell that was comforting, it was just you-plain, simple and sincere.  Your unwavering confidence in the future, in what can be, continues to inspire me long after you’ve gone from this world.  And even though you died much earlier than any of us would have liked, I think you were happy and content, and your contentment regardless of whatever life threw your way encourages me to be a happier, better me.