Sometimes people try to describe a situation and, eventually, after trying and failing and trying and failing, become eclipsed by the good-ness or bad-ness of what they're trying to describe. Sometimes they give up and say, "I don't have the words," or, "you just had to be there."
If your dad is a writer, then he doesn't have that excuse. He doesn't have that recourse. As a writer, he has to have the words. He has to describe it as if you'd been there. If he can't, then perhaps a change of lifelong goals is in order. Certainly, there's a difference between being an excellent oral storyteller and being a writer. It's perfectly understandable that the two don't intersect at all points. But in the same way a mathematics specialist sticks with a numbers problem, even if that mathlete has to hop over a hurdle or two, a writing sticks with a word problem, even if they have to detour around the odd writer's block.
Your dad sees you roll up to word-clogged roadblocks from time to time. When you don't have the noun in your head that you need, you hold the object up to your mom and dad and start saying, "This. That. This. That." Your mom and dad may or may not be of any help at that point. You're usually handing them a piece of trash. Something you found on the kitchen floor, out of place, or some rarely-visited corner of the backyard. "This. That." If your mom and dad find the right word, they tell you what it is, even if that object is "trash"--along with so many other things that inexplicably fall into the category.
A dried brown banana peel is trash. A gum wrapper is trash. Something that was called "a spider on the ceiling" just moments ago is now squished in a paper towel in your mom's hand and has been transformed into "trash." Ballerina toe shoes you've worn for countless living room performances have worn completely through and are now, somehow, "trash." So many things you already know the words to still have the power to become something else. The noun hasn't changed so much as the purpose, and purpose--unlike nouns and verbs and adjectives--isn't one of the standard parts of speech.
So your dad shuffles off into the little red car and goes to the library or to the bookstore, laptop in tow. He's looking for a new career. One that will transform him. Your dad is still dad. The noun hasn't changed. But his purpose has. And he's struggling to not transform into "trash." People have the ability to transcend that natural order, that entropy, that disintegration. But it takes work.
