|
|
There's a black-and-white snapshot in a family album.
Me, squinting in the sun, 3-inch blonde pigtails sticking out, fresh-picked daisies in my hand.
And, on the other side of the camera, unseen in the photo, my father.
I was 5. He was 33.
I remember that moment, probably because of the photograph, so I will say that maybe that is how it started.
New to town, we were exploring our neighborhood on foot. I'd walked beside him down the sidewalk a couple of blocks from our Caroline Street home, skidded down a steep dirt path, traversed a field, poked through thick underbrush, and emerged at river's edge where water for the power plant pounded into the current.
It was just the right-sized adventure for the tiny girl I was.
It must have meant something to my father, too, because he thought to snap the picture.
From then on, we were walking buddies.
I can't count the number of times people have said, "I saw you and your dad walking down " fill in the blank--we've walked every street, path and alley in town. We've put in plenty of miles on country roads and mountain trails. We've blazed a few of our own.
It all came back to me this week, when I heard about National Father-Daughter Take a Walk Day, which is today.
There really is such a thing.
It's listed among 12,000 holidays in Chase's Calendar of Events, and I spoke with the woman who originated it, Janet M. Dellaria, a school librarian in Geneva, Ill.
She and her father didn't begin their walking tradition until he was in his 70s.
She would travel to his Tulsa, Okla., home in time for his July 9 birthday, and in the evenings, they would take off on foot, always stopping by his favorite tree.
She started the observance in 1999 to honor him, and to encourage others to appreciate their own relationships.
"My thinking was I wanted to put this treasure out there for other people," Dellaria said in a telephone interview from her Geneva home.
"Taking a walk is not a common thing anymore. You put the kids in the back seat and take them to dancing or soccer, but it's not the same thing.
"Children may have their own lives with their own friends--but to enjoy your life with your parents, to know that love that is invisible, it's more than what's on the outside--it's the special sharing of time."
That special sharing can take place so much more easily away from the distractions in the typical household.
My father, Curt Miller, was a busy, pipe-smoking newspaperman.
He got up before dawn, spent the day rushing to meet deadlines, and by the time he got home, probably had good reason to tell his children to buzz off.
But that wasn't him.
As far as I know, he never read a child-care book. He never fretted over quality time versus quantity time. I doubt he ever paid much attention to the psychological research about the importance of a father in a girl's life.
I'd like to think he took me walking for the same reason I went walking with him--for fun.
It wasn't something he did for me. It was something he did with me. Side by side. Step by step.
Sometimes we had a mission, an errand, a destination. More often, we didn't.
As he'd say, we'd just "go where our legs take us."
We had our private language. "Onward, McDuff!" he would order, as we rounded a bend in the woods or started up a steep hill.
Without him, I could easily have turned into a sissy girl, prone as I was to rather prim inclinations. He saved me from that fate--insisting we take the path less traveled, one that looked dangerously full of copperheads to me.
I never spoke my fears, I always let him go first, and we survived.
We talked about everything and nothing.
Maybe about the neighbor's political poster. Or his days in the Boy Scouts. Or why I eventually wanted to have children.
We soaked up every gift that nature had to offer in our corner of the world--those steamy summer nights when the heat of the day breaks into a soft haze, those ice-crunchy winter days.
I went from that pig-tailed tyke to a leggy middle school student with pointy glasses and a zit or two. He went from the trim athlete who jogged to work, to a middle-aged man bent on lowering his triglyceride level.
Every once in a while, I would wonder when I would become too grown-up to walk with my dad.
I grew that hair to my waist, hippy-style. His turned white.
Still, we walked.
We walked together, and walking was such a part of our lives that the treasure extended to others.
Years later, my best friend, Polly, spoke of how her walks with my father and me had opened her eyes to the appreciation of the natural world.
When my sister gave birth to four daughters, it was only natural that they should follow my footsteps with their grampa.
My dates followed my footsteps all around, too--I'm afraid I gave them little choice. Mr. Right was good about it. Brian and I started dating in January 1979, and now share cherished memories of those first days together, getting to know one another as we walked briskly in the 15-degree nights under the winter stars.
Our son Nathan came along on a summer day in 1986.
I covered miles--on foot, of course--around our neighborhood, as he snoozed in his Snugli.
Then he got his walking legs.
One evening, when he was almost 2, we took the video camera along for one of our family outings. The movie shows Grampa, Brian, Nathan, me, and Atlee the bulldog meandering around the Mary Washington College campus.
An average day, an average walk, a cherished time.
As Nathan grew, he and his grampa often walked to their "special place," a wooded retreat not far from the highway.
We're all still walking, in various configurations. Nathan will turn 16 this summer. I'm wondering when he'll think he's too mature to join his mom for a walk.
I've never outgrown my walks with my dad.
If I were asked what I've learned in all these years and miles, I might say I've come to know my father as a person, not a saint, not a villain.
I've learned something of the joy and pain, the fire and love that make up one human being--and by extension, all human beings.
I've learned to notice the little things: the mockingbird that swoops out of its tree at sunset, the tadpoles that dart around the mud hole, the turtle sunning on the log.
I've learned that someone cares, and I've learned the importance of family. I'm doing what I can to pass this on to my children.
I might say these things if someone asked, but I think I'd probably turn the question around: "What have you learned from breathing? Because that's what walking with my dad has been to me--as natural and as much a part of my life as breathing."
I'm 47. My dad is 75.
We're taking a walk together today.
