This Lonely Walk
I was not a brave kid. My sense of adventure was confined to my very active imagination, with one exception; those magical mornings when Uncle Johnny would come by, usually unannounced but always welcome. His arrival always meant one thing - a walk.
And by walk I don't mean a casual stroll around the neighborhood, I mean a Walk, a trek, an adventure! Hours spent wandering blazed trails or unexplored woods where he always seemed to know the way, wading through waist deep streams, precariously walking across frozen ponds, trespassing into abandoned homes and long forgotten mills, exploring the land around the reservoir and learning to duck when the DEM trucks road by.
Adventure.
On those days I wasn't timid, there was no time for timidity on walks with Uncle Johnny, we were all brave, intrepid explorers, but if ever my courage failed, if the rocky footing across a stream seemed too wobbly, the water too deep and too swift, he was there with an extended hand to help me across with a
"Hurry up, Wendy, we haven't got all day"
in that gruff tone he had but which always made me believe I was as brave as one of those explorers I daydreamed about.
I didn't know then about his own childhood, how young he was when his dad died, or how hard life was for him and my mom. I did learn as the years went by that there was no hand reaching across treacherous waters for him and his big sister, only that they held tight to each other.
That is how they remained, each the witness to the others life, holding hands through joys and sorrows. They saw each other married, became parents and saw those children become parents themselves, and they grew older still hand in hand.
The long adventure of his life is over, he has crossed that last icy stream leaving us on the far side with precarious footing ahead.
Every walk in the woods, every time I explored some abandoned place, every time I stood at the edge of the water he has been there in the corner of my mind saying,
"Hurry up, Wendy"
Just as he is here now with all of us as we reach out to help each other across these wobbly rocks,
"Hurry up, we haven't got all day"
And because he believes we can take those next steps, we will, each of us reaching out so no one is left behind.
