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Mushroom hunting with grandpa is one of my oldest memories. We got lost in the woods once, which is easy when you’re focused on the ground & hiking thick wilderness. I had no idea we were lost. My imagination was ignited. The stillness, the trees, the light through their limbs...
But then I caught a glimpse of fear on my grandpa’s face, and he admitted that he didn’t know which way to go. I was a little kid and this was the first time, that I can remember, an adult admitting they didn’t know what to do. In retrospect, it was a profound experience...
As the hours ticked past, grandpa did his best to stay upbeat so I wouldn’t worry, but we were deep in the hollows of Panther Creek and it was getting darker. It felt like we had wandered into a place beyond the known world. In a way, for me, that was true...
Finally, we found an old fence post on a patch of isolated prairie. We followed trampled black barbed wire to a line of telephone poles, then traced that back to a country road as the sun disappeared. Hungry, tired, we got in grandpa’s truck & drove home in the fading light...
I don’t remember if we found mushrooms that day, but I will never forget that first jolt of uncertainty & vulnerability. I was afraid. But pushing through that fear & finding a way out was thrilling. I’ve been obsessed with the unknown and finding a way through ever since...
I’m grateful for that experience. I know he felt bad, like he put his grandson through something scary and unnecessary, but in a strange way, it was such a gift. I wish that I could tell my grandpa this, but I can’t. I can’t because my grandpa died unexpectedly today...
My grandpa was a kind, quiet man. He served his country in Korea and came back to the rural Midwest to work in a factory as a machine operator. He had a lifelong struggle with anxiety & PTSD, and if not for his children would have rarely chosen to leave our small town...
These last couple decades he grew more reclusive and I only saw him if I was back in Illinois visiting for a holiday. My mom and her siblings would visit him on Thursdays for “popcorn” night where he would often sit quietly for the download of small town gossip...
I’m riding out this quarantine in our small hometown, and I was looking forward to seeing my grandpa again. He fell recently and was in the hospital awaiting surgery for a broken ankle. Due to the pandemic, we were not allowed to visit him. Then, suddenly, he was gone...
My heart aches when I think of all the people out there in hospital beds right now, alone, afraid, unable to simply hold a loved one’s hand. Many didn’t see this coming and many are unable to see their loved ones at their hours of greatest need...
We lost my grandma 6 1/2 years ago and I believe my grandpa was ready to find her beyond this uncertain world. He wanted to go home. There’s some solace in that, for him, but the suddenness and finality, for me, does leave a lingering regret for words that went unspoken...
This is my grandpa’s house. I mowed the yard for him when I was a kid. I didn’t know what to do today so I wandered by. I pulled out the mower and cut the grass one more time for him, as the sun disappeared. I looked at his truck sitting there in the fading light, and wept.
If there’s someone out there you want to thank & you’ve been waiting for another day to find the right words, go ahead & let it out. I don’t think you’ll regret it.
It’s alright to feel lost, afraid, vulnerable.
There’s a way out of these uncertain woods.
We’ll find it together.
It’s alright to feel lost, afraid, vulnerable.
There’s a way out of these uncertain woods.
We’ll find it together.
