Arboretum Color
Arboretum Color
While my granddaughter was visiting for a weekend in early November, I asked her if there was anything special she'd like to do, and she chose to visit the arboretum. It's been a special place to her since she was a toddler, and I'm so happy that she has good memories of all the times we went there: sometimes as many as four generations gathered together, with my parents, my wife and me, our daughter, and her children, having a picnic among the trees.
Now, from the advanced, grown-up age of twelve, my granddaughter was feeling nostalgic about years gone past. She sat upon the stone turtle she used to climb on, stooped low to go through the tunnel she once ran through, and zoomed down the long slide running a hundred feet down the side of a hill. She said she "felt like a little kid again." We strolled the grounds and reminisced: "Remember when you and your brother went wading in that creek?" "Yeah, and I wasn't wearing boots!" Her memories of six or seven years ago seem like just yesterday to me, but to her it's half a lifetime. She's a sophisticated, introspective young woman now, but as we walked, her face and bearing transformed, and she did indeed seem "like a little kid again."
It's good to revisit the magical places of childhood, so filled with wonder and discovery. As we walked, I once again saw my mom and dad, in their nineties, grinning at their great-grandchildren climbing over stone turtles. I saw my daughter flying down the great slide, laughing. I saw my wife beaming at her grandchildren as they splashed in the creek. Yesterday, it was just the two of us enjoying an afternoon walk. But in my mind and heart, there were four generations of us, all smiling in the sunshine and gaping at the glorious colors of November.