The Writing on the Walks

By the time I got home from work last night, the sun was already low on the horizon and the dark of the night was beginning to edge its way into the sky. I changed clothes, gulped down a couple of bites of peanut butter, grabbed Ollie and headed out for a walk. Looking at the fading sun, I decided to go ahead and walk on the trail, hoping that the dark wouldn't come too soon. I'm not sure that Ollie likes it when I'm in "Hurry up, Ollie, it's getting dark" mode ... it sure seems like he walks slower when I say those words. We had only walked about 15 minutes when the darkness tumbled in around us, so we turned and headed back toward home.

Yesterday was a long day, and I was mentally, emotionally and physically worn out when I got home. So much so that when we reached our street after our brief little walk, all I wanted to do was go home, eat some yogurt and go to bed. Ollie, however, made it abundantly clear that he wasn't finished walking by firmly planting himself on the sidewalk and refusing to move.

"I know I should keep walking, Ollie," I said to my determined little wiener dog. "But I've had a hard day, buddy, and I just want to go home and pull the covers over my head for a while."

I tugged on Ollie's leash, but he wouldn't budge. He just sat there looking up at me with his beautiful brown eyes, wagging his cute little tail and letting me know that he fully intended for us to keep on walking.

"Okay, buddy, we'll walk some more, but not far ... deal?"

I thought Ollie's tail was going to wag right off his butt as he jumped up and ran ahead of me ... this time he was the one tugging me along as I held onto his leash. We walked along the sidewalk on our usual "after it gets too dark to walk on the trail" route, and I smiled as Ollie knowingly trotted onto the drive that leads to the high school. Normally, we would walk around to the back parking lot at the school, but like I said, I was tired last night so I steered Ollie to the sidewalk that wraps around the front of the school. As we stepped up onto the sidewalk, I noticed some writing on the concrete surface beneath my feet. It caught my attention because it was a quote ... a quote that included the words, "pint-sized Godzilla" which immediately made me think of my granddaughter Amelie because the nickname her father has so graciously bestowed upon her is "Baby Zilla." I pulled out my phone and took a photo of the chalky quote so that I could send it to my daughter-in-law, and as the camera flashed, I noticed there was another quote a few feet farther along the sidewalk ... and then another and another and another and another.

I'm not sure how long Ollie and I spent on the sidewalk last night as I walked along reading the quotes and snapping pictures of them, but I do know that I bawled like a baby the entire time. Some of the quotes were funny ... some were silly ... some were sad ... some were soul-searchingly deep ... some made no sense to me at all. I cried because the quotes made me think about my old quote post at work ... I cried because some of the quotes hit very close to home for me ... I cried because I thought about the students who had written them and wondered why they chose the particular quotes that they did. When Ollie and I finally headed toward home, I knew it wasn't an accident that we ended up walking that way last night ... it was no accident at all. You see, it's raining tonight ... the rain is washing all the chalky quotes away. The quotes that must have been placed on the concrete walk yesterday since they weren't smudged or worn ... on the night that Ollie wasn't finished walking ... on the night I randomly chose to walk in front of the school rather than behind it ... on the night before the rain came and washed them all away. As surely as I'm typing this post, I was meant to walk that exact path last night and I was meant to see those quotes.

Maybe ... just maybe ... some of you are meant to see them, too.