Dear Nate

Wow, just wow. The story of Nate Fleming left me speechless and with tears in my eyes. What can I say other than how grateful I am to have read this beautiful piece. I loved this story so much that I even sent it to my team as our weekly Motivation Monday. It was so touching in so many ways and I think a story like that deserves to be shared.

I just have to say that Tom Friend is a master at feature writing. This was by far the best example of a powerful narrative that I’ve ever seen. It was powerful in the way the characters were portrayed; it was powerful in the way it drew me in from the first sentence to the last; and it was powerful in the way it made me feel. I knew what was going to happen and I still cried; that’s when you know it was a well written story. This was a story about Nate, but the way he drew in the other characters like Zane and Kyle and gave them their own stories within the bigger narrative was so captivating. You were able to see an all-encompassing narrative that expands beyond the main character but still ties into the story. It would have been so easy for the writer to have just brushed past this assignment without giving it much thought. He could have decided that this wasn’t worth the time and effort to work with the family and ask the difficult questions. However, when the writer took this story, he saw potential and he knew that he could make an impact with the way he wove this narrative together. I think this is the difference between average and great reporting; you have to be willing to see potential and work tirelessly to see it to fruition.

I learned a lot from just reading this story but going back through and thinking about what the reporter had to do in order to capture a specific moment was incredibly insightful. I think the main keys to paint a story like this is patience, observation, courage and empathy. Patience to wait to get the story right and not to rush through things causing you to miss details. Observance to catch little details like the smell of Nate’s cologne or his signature red pillows. Courage to ask the difficult questions. Last but not least, empathy to try and understand what these people are going through. I strongly believe that these are the keys to being a good reporter. It was easy to see where Friend used these keys to create a more impactful story.

There were several parts of this story that I absolutely loved but there are two that stuck out to me. The first was the way Friend started the story with Zane and then taking us back in time to when Nate was a baby just trying to sleep in bed with his parents to bring us to the lead, “Because he'd do anything to have one more night with Nate.” This is what drew me in to the story and of course I didn't see the genius of Friend’s plan with the lead until the very end. Right when Kyle was talking to Zane about his own kid trying to sleep in bed with his parents the last line was, "No,'' Zane said to Kyle. "Let him in your bed. Let him in your bed as long as you can. As long as you can.'' This was so perfectly planned out and it brought me back to the other day when we were talking about how to tie the end back in with the lead. This was a stunning example of that because it gave me chills just reading it. This is by far one of the best stories I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading; it was definitely worth all the tears.