The Moon
When I was three and you were thirty three we walked hand in hand down the red dirt lane towards our little white cottage accompanied by 10,000 crickets, an equal number of lightening bugs and a fat Georgia moon. I drew your attention to the fact that the moon was going with us on our walk but you said that wasn’t so. With my sharp eyes I could see you were wrong and said so! “Look!” I exclaimed, pointing my tiny finger at the irrefutable empirical evidence. But you said, “It just looks that way. If we stop the moon will stop, too.” And so it did. I remember being disappointed with the disillusionment. However, looking back through many years now I recognize several salient points of that tender memory. You were honest with me and chose not to condescend. Calmly you told the truth which was respectful of me and you gave me credit that I could absorb that information. You presented the facts and treated me as a thinking, reasoning person despite my very young age. I also see in that little episode something I have appreciated all my life – that being your patient quality in teaching. Invariably you would present a bit of information for me to chew on and when I had that piece digested you would add another bit. You always had this easy teaching progression. And looking back fondly on this lovely memory I recognize another something which makes me smile. My guess is that walking a small child through the summer moonlight was a pleasant way for you to go slowly and do little. This was always a gift of yours – your calm, slow nature. Too bad, Daddy, you left this old world without being able to teach more of us that delightful way of living.