I'm reading a book right now and this
morning it hit me. The father in the book reminds me of my Dad.
In the book a young girl has gone blind
and her father finds a way to show her the world. My father did
exactly the same thing.
Sometimes, it was drawing a one yard
square in the dirt while we were working and I was too small to
constantly have something to do, and telling me to watch it until he
returned. Then he would quiz me. What did I see? What did I learn?
Other times it was taking my sister and
me on a hike in the woods and then announcing, “I'll see you back
at camp.” This started happening when I was very small. My sister
and I learned to pay attention. Dad would say things like,“Look at
the way that tree is growing, do you think the one with the fork
above it caused it to be stunted like that?”
Lessons like: A flowing stream will
eventually lead to a river and towns are built on rivers. Water with
bugs is safe. I knew a lot about edible plants in the wild and where
the dry tinder (on the underside of conifers) could be found in a
pinch.
The Colorado Rockies held no fear for
me. I camped alone there from the time I could drive. The Utah
desert was the same. All the ways to find moisture, how to spot
flash flood danger, where to watch for rattlesnakes.
In the novel, the father makes a model
of the town for the newly blind girl, prewar France in August 1944.
A year later, they step out of his work, a journey they've made with
her hand on his belt loop, every work day, and he says, “take us
home.”
I marvel at my Dad, telling us, see you
back at camp and stepping off the trail. He was gone. We couldn't
see him, couldn't hear him. I remember being very afraid. I was 6
years old. But my sister was just over 4 years old and already
crying. I said, “Don't worry, we can do it.'
I knew he would not ask of me more than
I could do. He trusted me because he knew my capabilities. He
believed in me and taught me to believe in me.
