By: Lora Wimsatt
I walk slowly, taking small steps, waddling like a penguin as my granddaughters toddle on either side of me, each clutching one of my fingers in their chubby little fists.
“See the dog,” I say, as we walk by a house where a large dog barks at us from behind the back yard fence. “See the big white dog. What does the dog say?”
Briley and Lyla obediently respond: “Arf! Arf!”
“See the car,” I say, as we stroll past a car parked beside the curb. “The car is blue. The car goes ‘Vrroom! Vrroom!’”
“Arf!” says Briley. She likes dogs better than cars.
“E-I-E-I-O,” sings Lyla.
I laugh.
It is a beautiful day. There is a bright blue sky, white fluffy clouds and a yellow sun. The whole world looks exactly as it does in a child’s crayoned drawing.
Well, almost.
The grass is not green, but brown. It is autumn. I look down the street, partly to measure how far we have left to go before we reach the corner, where we will turn around and come back to the house where the rest of our family is waiting. We have gathered for a day of fellowship, food and fun. Board games will fill the afternoon but the main entertainment will be – as it has been since they arrived – the babies.
My granddaughters.
They aren’t babies anymore. They are walking, talking, thinking for themselves and definitely displaying their own distinct personalities.
I marvel at how much they have grown over the past year and can only wonder at how much they will grow in the years ahead.
We have reached the corner and I try to guide them around in a wide circle without breaking stride. My strategy has failed – both girls break into a wail and tug at my hands, pulling me around, wanting to go on, go further …
I look around, desperate for a solution, not wanting to return my grandchildren to their parents in tears – and I see the answer.
“Briley, look! Look, Lyla! Do you see the leaves? So many leaves! What color are the leaves? They are brown and red and yellow and orange. Pretty, pretty leaves!”
They allow me to steer them toward a pile of leaves someone has raked to the corner of their yard.
They immediately let go of my fingers and dash toward the leaves, wading in with shrieks of laughter as the leaves swirl and crunch around them. Briley crouches down, snatches up a handful, and flings them into the air. The leaves flutter all around and for a moment the girls appear to be in the midst of a sepia-tinted snowglobe.
I watch, smiling, as the girls continue to play, kicking and tossing leaves everywhere. Suddenly, I realize my granddaughters are undoing someone’s hard work. Daring a glance at the house to be sure nobody is watching, I hurriedly whisper for the girls to pick out a pretty leaf, and let’s take it back to give to Mommy.
They like this idea. They each grab a handful of leaves – not necessarily pretty leaves, but this is not the time for a lesson in aesthetics – and allow me to lead them back to the sidewalk and toward the direction of home.
We see the blue car again, and the white dog, arf, arf, shedding a trail of dropped leaves all down the sidewalk as we retrace our steps, going back to where we first began.
But now I am thinking about the seasons of life, and how things change, and how children grow, and I realize that as each day passes, we will never go back again.