The tall sweet grass that grew along the side of the road tickled my fingers as I skipped along beside my grandmother. It was two o’clock, our daily walk time. With one hand full of wild flowers and the other sliding through the grass, I trotted along merrily as my grandmother told me stories of my town in “the old days.” The melodic songs of robins and sparrows trickled through the trees, and a light breeze blew the hair from my face. These are the days I wish I could go back to, the days when life was so simple, and all I had to do was listen to the stories of the past and cling tight to my grandmother’s hand. These walks taught me the greatest life lessons.
The street that we lived on was quiet and serene.There were long stretches of forests between my house and my closest neighbors and this is where we would walk, down one hill to a small stream and up another hill to the neighbor’s where tiger lilies grew wildly. This was one of my favorite spots, and we would often stop to pick a handful of the vibrant flowers. As I searched for the perfect flowers, my grandmother would tell me of the people who lived in the house when she was young. I would listen and absorb her memories, turning them into my own. Her stories taught me lessons that she had learned at my age. At that time, I did not know the impact her stories and lessons would have on me.
Tiger lilies were not the only flowers I would gather on our walks. Each time I would discover a new flower my grandmother would pluck it from the soil and explain what it was. I would make bouquets of baby pink, purple, and rare white lupines for my mother. As I picked the sensitive flowers my grandmother would teach me how flowers spread beauty throughout the world. She showed me the seed pods of the lupines, and in the fall we would collect them and scatter them in the field near out house. “We are helping nature spread its beauty,” she would tell me as I flung a handful of seed into the earth to be reborn next spring.
On our way back to the house, we would pause at the stream. It trickled along merrily on its own leisurely walk to the Atlantic Ocean that lay just on the other side of the woods. It seemed impossible that this tiny stream would soon become part of such a vast body of water. Here my grandmother would tell me how all small things are linked together to form the bigger picture, just as the tiny stream helps form the mighty ocean. She told me one day, I too, would help form the bigger picture. Being only nine or ten years old at the time, I had no idea what she was talking about. Later I would see what she meant, another lesson she taught me without me realizing.
In the late fall, we bundled up for our walks. In Washington County, fall comes in like a lion. Equipped with gloves and hunters orange – the usual hunting season apparel – we’d set off gloved hand in gloved hand down the hill. Since the flowers had retreated into the earth for the winter, we would instead search for wildlife. There was always an abundance of squirrels and chipmunks gathering nuts for the long winter. If we were lucky, we would catch sight of deer loping gracefully through the winding trees. One frigid day as we worked our way down the frosted hill, I heard a rustling in the woods. I turned to see what was causing this slightest of noises. There, standing by the stream, was a sleek doe deer. Standing tucked under her neck was a tiny baby fawn. We stopped walking and watched from a distance as the fawn bent his head to drink from the icy stream. The mother stood over him protectively. The young babe lifted his head from the stream and peered up at his mother. The doe nuzzled the young one with her nose, and then they both turned and skittered back off into the woods. This was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen to this day. These creatures were so calm, the mother so protective of her young. You could see the love one creature had for the other. Here, my grandmother taught me that every creature has a soul, a spirit. Humans are not the only ones able to feel and emit emotions. Since that day I have always believed that every creature on this planet has a spirit capable of love.
As I grew older and began spending more time with friends, I no longer took daily walks with my grandmother. The day came when my grandmother could no longer walk our usual long trail, then the day that she could no longer walk at all. Some days I would take her out in her wheel chair and push her around the driveway, but I could not take her to our usual spots because she could not be out doors for long amounts of time. Our walks were the one thing we had always shared, where I had learned many life lessons, and now they were being taken away from me.
To this day my grandmother has been my greatest teacher. Not in a classroom, but in life. I still walk our walk when I am home. I still pause at the same places, still pick flowers as I walk, watch the trickling stream, and keep my eyes open for fawns. The lessons taught at these places could never have been taught in a classroom. They were lessons that could only be shared between a grandmother and a grandchild on a leisurely walk, down a peaceful road, hand-in-hand, and heart-in-heart.