For the Easter school break, we were lucky to have our four grandchildren, ages six to 10, visit us for a day. Unfortunately the day chosen turned out to be a rainy, grey day, not quite miserable enough to keep us from going for a walk, but enough to stiffen up old bones.
We walked in the rain, down to the mouth of Glade creek. There is a small wetland there which my six-year-old grandson, Arlo, declared to be beautiful: “Come and look you guys, it’s beautiful, beautiful!!”
On the way down to this beautiful place, my seven-year old-grandson, Harrison, was intent on collecting small stones and pebbles, and I with my bum knee was quite happy to go slow and stick with him far behind the pack. He of course was happy and excited to show me the variety in his finds.
I suggested to him that he might like to make a rock tumbler, whereby he could turn those rough pebbles into shiny smooth gems.
“But, Granpappy” he said, ‘“if you did that you could never get them back the way they were.”
It stopped me in my tracks. From my corrupted adult perspective, rather than appreciate our good fortune in finding such unique things, we, as humans, should try to improve on them. From his uncorrupted seven-year-old perspective, those rocks were beautiful as is, and not in need of any human intervention.
It is a good thing they gave those kids a week off school, so they could come and teach their grandparents a thing or two about life.
Rod Retzlaff
Glade