A Walk To Remember

As long as I can remember I have loved listening to stories from older people.  I don't know if it is part of imagining how the world was before I was a part of it, or picturing them as young people, but I love it.  Tonight I had the opportunity to listen to my Nana tell stories.  My sister Jen and I were visiting and she loves to talk as all of us girls in our family do.  She spoke of growing up in Emmaus, how her family would get four quarts of ice cream for a dollar at the corner store, and raising chickens in the back yard.  She remembered helping her family work at the garage they owned and spoke of eating potatoes of some fashion for dinner most nights during the depression.  She recounted stories of her and my grandfather during their courtship and how she was sent for to come home after she missed her ten o'clock curfew when she was engaged and at a family party at my grandfather's house.  She became teary eyed when she spoke of how she was reared with a firm hand by her father contrasted with the nurture and meekness of her mother.  She told us of how my grandfather would walk from the 8th Street bridge in Allentown to Chestnut Street in Emmaus to visit her when they were dating.  And that is where my thoughts dwell tonight.  I looked on google maps and entered in his starting location and finish point and asked for the distance by walking.  It is 4.8 miles and they estimate it would take and hour and 38 minutes.  I like to take walks myself.  I pray sometimes when I walk and run the gamut from family to friends, to issues in my life, to hopes for the future that I ask God's leading and guidance, and patience.  I can imagine my grandfather walking the nearly five miles getting more and more excited to see my Nana with each step.  I wonder if he jogged a bit, or just walked briskly, or took a stroll and prayed.  Knowing him, I can bet that at least part of the walk was filled with songs he would sing, as I find myself doing.  I wonder if the three children he would have with the woman he went to meet had ever crossed his mind.  Or if he could have possibly imagined the wonderfulness of his ninth grandchild :) To think of my grandfather, a young man of twenty or so walking to meet his sweetie is just such a wonderful image for me.  I dare say most men today would say that the girl is not worth it if they had to walk nearly five miles one way to see them.   I love that now, all these years later my Nana has that memory of her boyfriend coming to see her.  And I love how God knew the end from the beginning and all that would transpire in between.  And I love what an encouragement it is for me on my journey to know that whatever part of the spectrum I am on it is all as it should be.  Because even though he walked alone, the only thing more constant than the woman he walked to meet was the One with whom he walked.