A girl I’d guess to be 4 or 5 just passed my house. She’s in the company of someone I’d bet is her grandpa. As it’s a picture-perfect day, sunny and clear, with low humidity, it’s no surprise to note their pleasure at being out in it together.
They’re taking their time, pausing and conversing as they travel the stretch of sidewalk along the length of my home. Again and again I can see the little girl look up to her grandpa for direction. He answers her questions matter-of-factly and with no small display of affection. Her face, in turn, is one of contentment and trust.
For, you see, though there is much to see, she cannot. She wears sunglasses and carries a cane, tapping it ahead of her as she memorizes where to find the stop signs, sidewalks, grass and curbs, and everything else in this corner of her world. Tap, tap, tap. Stop.
This many steps to the curb. You will want to be careful, as it’s a busy intersection. There’s a school on your right a block from here, and another at the end of the street behind us. Ok, here’s the curb. Let’s step off and count to the other corner. Turn around. Let’s do it again. Tap, tap, tap. Stop.
They take their time. She trusts him and relies on him but she also has to learn it for herself. He can’t do it for her, though he can do it with her. But she has to take the steps, feel her way, train her ears, memorize the landmarks, gain the confidence. There is grass, that is sidewalk, here’s the street. As he goes with her, she ventures out to measure the steps, and listen for traffic, and feel for the edges. Tap, tap, tap. Grow.
It’s a powerful reminder that people who are learning to do life differently than they once did — who walk in the dark figuratively if not literally — need a sighted companion to rely on, a trusted guide to show where the dangers are, where the straight paths are, and how to tell the difference.
People have done this for me again and again these six months since Jack died. What a difference their company has made! They tell what they themselves have learned, often from first-hand experience. They are compassionate. They hold out hope in the Now even as they must acknowledge the loss of the Then.
One bleak evening, for example, I remember I was overwhelmed with the silence of the house, absorbing once again the finality of the reality that he still wasn’t back, and he never was going to be. (Reality takes some getting used to.)
It occurred to me to email a friend whose husband had died a year or so before. “Just tell me,” I begged, “that it gets easier.”
Though it was late at night, she replied almost immediately, giving hope while saying hard words the best she could: “It does. But not right away, and it will never be the same.”
“It does. But not right away, and it will never be the same.”
Relief washed through me when she said that. I couldn’t see it, couldn’t hardly dare to believe it, felt too raw to imagine it — but because I knew her, and knew she was a truth teller, I was able to tap, tap, tap a little further before stopping for the night. It was going to get better, just not right away. But it would. My friend knew. She told me so.
Such is the gift we give one another — what that grandpa is doing for his granddaughter outside my house right now, what my friend did for me that night — we can lend strength and sight and cheer and direction. However imperfectly we do it, it will help.
And then, there is the biggest and best Guide of all who does do it perfectly and who has assured us, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”
