Walking Man

It brought great joy to me to see the elderly Asian couple walking together again.

It had been months since the two were seen out early in the morning together. They had become a friendly daily fixture to the landscape as I drove to work. She always had a ball cap with an extra long and floppy bill. He stood almost a foot over her, balding and peppered with bits of reminders of his younger hair color. They weren't always in the act of walking. Many times she was propped up against a bench or a neighborly wooden fence. He would be about eight paces ahead of her staring at her like a golden retriever patiently pleading for the walk to begin again.

One day the man was replaced with a younger, shorter version of himself. A son, I casually thought to myself. The young man was more overweight and usually was sitting with the resting woman.

After seeing this a handful of times, I had suspected the worst. A sadness briefly filled me as I sped by at 35 miles per hour, concerned about punching the work clock timely.

About 4 or 5 months later, they older man returned to the side of the fledgling exerciser and a warmth filled me.

"He isn't dead!" I exclaimed and pointed interrupting the chitter-chatter of little girls in the back seat. My daughters didn't even slow down. Instead they sped along with their thoughts, their ideas, their life.