Let’s Not Fall

Let’s Not Fall

June 25, 2024

My sweet little 16-month-old granddaughter—who’s only been walking about four months, perhaps saved me from actually falling today.

I’m a 72-year-old woman. I fear stumbling. I try to walk very carefully.

She’s an adventurous little girl who took my hand as we walked around the outside of a huge and popular steak house on a very busy Father’s Day lunch. Her parents were finishing their meal, after having worked diligently to help feed Ayla so she would get some good nutrients, and not just eagerly swallow the wonderful warm rolls they serve there.

Ayla’s grandfather reminded his own daughter how she used to fill up on rolls at restaurants (and elsewhere) before learning how tasty the world of food was—beyond bread.

So Ayla was done eating, and restless of course. Grandma, me, planned to take home the second half of my meal, saving it for another day, so the parents happily affirmed Grandma’s offer to take Ayla for a walk while they finished up.

I was wearing a newish pair of sandals that I only wear in summer. I saw an awkward piece of sidewalk that raised up a bit and started to fall but I think the fact that I had hold of Ayla’s hand—and didn’t want her to fall on the cement, her hand in mine helped us both to not fall. Is that possible?

At any rate, we both loved the little walk together, something she has taken up, walking for part of the way home from her daycare. They walk just a block or so, (and rides in a stroller for much of the way) but she walks like she owns the sidewalk. Walking like mommy, daddy, grandma and grandpa.

As we walked past some loud speakers playing some tunes, I could tell Ayla wanted to wiggle a little, doing her little dance moves that she enjoys with her mother and father. So we danced on the sidewalk for maybe 7-8 seconds, then continued on.

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We had gone to church that morning on the Sunday before Juneteenth, a ceremonial holiday in some 47 states, which commemorates the day on June 19, 1865 when a Union general read orders in Galveston, Texas stating all enslaved people in the state were free according to federal law. Juneteenth was designated a federal holiday in 2021. As we sung the traditional and oh-so-moving anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” my heart went back and forth between sorrow for the wrongs and torment experienced by people in the times of slavery, and joy and hope that this granddaughter would grow up in better times.

My father diligently taught us children the error of our country’s ways during its early days, when slavery, for many, was an accepted part of life. He took us to visit a church in a larger city nearby where we first heard the energetic music common in many predominately Black churches, which always included spirited dancing too. When we moved from northern Indiana to northern Florida in 1969, I was a senior in high school. There my brother and I experienced the first year of full integration of blacks and whites in the schools in Florida. Some of it was exciting to experience as we all went through this huge change in the culture of that area, but some teachers were known to use derogatory racial language if they knew that no blacks were in the room. If teachers used that language, it was no surprise that some students, not all, used that insulting slang. How shameful.  

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Let’s not fall into old, reprehensible ways. May we all do better, know better, love greater, affirm all persons, and pray for more care and understanding all around the world.

Your thoughts? Experiences? Stories to share? Pictures you’ve drawn?? Comment here ….