When Generations Meet...

With a hundred miles or so under my boots, I could feel my body's dramatic morphing from a casual hiker with the body of a couch potato into that of a long distance hiking athlete; trim and fit for the long haul conquering the adversities of Appalachian Trail.

I thought these things as I leaned on my hiking poles, huffing and puffing great gulps of air somewhere along the higher elevations of the White Mountain Range in Maine; waiting for my body to recover from a particularly strenous section of hiking trail. Looking backward, I noticed her approaching me at a relatively fast pace.

Oh, how disturbing knowing that my mid-life body could not travel as fast and effeciently as the body of my youth or the young woman coming up the trail behind me. I could feel myself beginning to resent her quicker pace and my not being able to stay ahead. How silly and vain I reasoned to myself.

As she passed by; she quietly nodded to me and pushed onward. It took only minutes for her to put some serious separation between us. Out of sight now; I continued my slower pace up the mountain's severe incline.

Laboring along, I approached the last group of large granite boulders- clumped together just below the mountains summit. Suddently, I spotted a strange site indeed. That same young women was crouched under one of the clefts of the rock; with a distressed look on her face.

My self-induced envy of her athletic prowness quickly melted away to review my inclinations of a father. I quickly approached her and asked if she was hurt. "No.", she replied, "I am afraid of lightning and with a storm approaching the summit; I didn't want to go on until you caught up with me. Will the storm get here before I make it to the top?"

Before I could respond she added, "I used to hide in my daddy's bedroom closet when there was a storm outside. He would come and get me when the storm had passed. Should I hide here or do you think it would be alright if you hiked with me to the top?"

My envy was replaced with a humble honor. I must have reminded her of her father back in Canada. She was simply someone's daughter who needed to know that everything would be alright. "Yes! You will be fine... and just to make sure, I am going to hike right along side of you until your safely to the summit and down the other side!"

Smiling, we silently pressed on the last few hundred yards to the summit and quickly descended down below the tree line long before the storm reached either of us. With a quick and genuine "Thank you so much!", she was gone.

I sometimes think of my ever so brief encounter with that young hiker somewhere in the wilderness mountains of central Maine. "There are some unexpected rewards being a father figure I determined."

I pushed onward down the trail with just a little more spring in my steps.

The father of the righteous has great joy. Whoever fathers a wise child delights in him. The Book of Proverbs 23:24