The trail and the things I learned as I walked along it

My Papa Rick understood how the world worked. He knew things like where gravity came from, what made fireflies glow, why socks always disappeared in the wash and when the world would end. Papa Rick also knew that he was dying so he grabbed my elbow with his knobby, scarred hand, a map of his adventures, and gently tugged me out the door.

"Come," he grunted wheezily, "we're going for a walk." He shuffled his way down the garden path, the path he took everyday even in the rain and sometimes even when he was ill. The grass was tall and yellow and the stalks whispered to each other as though to alert our coming. When the house was out of sight and we were truly alone with the grass, and the path, and the trees that grew denser on either side of us, Papa Rick spoke.

"You are my grandson," he smacked his lips together as though tasting the words, "and grandfathers always pass things on to their grandsons. I wish to give you this trail to use whenever you wish." He shakily raised his arms gesturing to the worn path before our feet.

"Thank you," I said, "but what is on this trail?"

"Everything worth knowing, everything school books failed to teach," he replied.

"Everything worth knowing?" I asked feeling a little insulted that my years of education would be of no use to me, "Then what is the point of school if there are such holes in the material."

"School teaches what men know, so there are bound to be holes. But it's important to know what men know, that way when you think up something clever you are humbled to know that someone thought it before you. School is to humble arrogant young minds."

"So then what is 'everything worth knowing'?"

"Wisdom I'd like to think. Wisdom is different from knowledge and I daren't confuse the two. Facts have their time and place, but wisdom permeates everything. It breathes in the leaves of the trees and and whispers to the passerby. It shines through the treetops and illuminates pathways previously unseen. Do you see anything?" he said with a voice like gravel.

I looked out to the trees and saw trees, my eyes wandered over the rippling grass and saw grass, I followed the trail and saw dirt. I looked over at Papa Rick and saw a faint shadow over his stooped shoulders.

"I see something hanging over you," I said feeling sure and somehow not, like seeing a feeling on someone else's face, knowing that they look happy or sad yet not knowing their exact feeling yourself.

"Oh, yes that's death," said Papa Rick mildly.

"A- are you afraid?" I asked, feeling suddenly scared myself.

"No only the young are afraid of dying. They fear they have not lived. I have lived. To the wizened old, dying is one last adventure. It is sailing over the edge of the world."

My mind started spinning very fast and my eyes darted to the tree trunks, my shoes, to Papa Rick's old plaid shirt in search of answers. I hardly realized that we were still walking, but I was suddenly aware of Papa Rick's ragged breathing next to me.

"Well what would you like me to do with your body?" I asked thinking practically. It seemed like an appropriate question to ask.

"Whatever you like."

"You mean you don't care?"

"Everything that is important I'm taking with me. My body is not important. I am not a body; I am a soul bound to skin."

"Is there anything you want me to do for you?"

"Yes, could you carry me a bit?" he looked at me through his thick glasses and I desperately wished that those eyes would never close. I scooped him up in my arms and he felt as light as a child, light as decay, light as dying. He smelled like toothpaste and faintly of cabbage even though he hated cabbage and never ate the stuff. I moved slowly so as not to jostle him and me put his white head on my shoulder.

"Do you want to head back to the house?" I asked.

"No, keep walking," he said faintly," I've already said goodbye."

"To grandma?"

"Yeah, she knows. Such a beautiful, beautiful woman."

"What about Dad?"

"My return will be as good as a goodbye," he said a little distantly.

"Why did you pick me? Why not Lawrence or Charlotte?"

"Because they have children. When people have children they immediately forget what it's like to be one. Children are like sponges, they lap up stories grandfathers tell them. I did not want my final words to fall on closed ears."

The sun was falling now, hanging in front of us as though I could walk into it. Papa Rick touched my cheek with his calloused forefinger. It was not until he wiped the tear away that I realized I was crying.

"Listen," he said and his eyes grew very focused on something beyond my shoulder, so focused it was as though he was watching the world being made, then they grew distant. Papa Rick understood the world fully now, he understood death, the edge of the world, to where God clasps man's hand.

I turned back to the house, my face utterly wet, turned away from the sun. How light he felt like straw, how wonderful he was like bread still warm, how sad it was to have lost him. Why could he not have stayed? Lord knows the world needs more like him.

I listened to the path, to the birds nesting for the night, to the stars coming out, to the fireflies, to gravity that pressed on my lungs like a vice, to day ending, and to the world as it kept turning.

I had never learned so much on a single walk, with a single sunset.