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Home › Articles › Fiction/Opinion/Essays › Jordan's Walk

Jordan's Walk

By Jenny Rackley

Pages:  1  2  

As we approached our neighbor's yard, Jordan reached toward the flowers, dropping one of his rocks. We already had experience with my flowers -- Jordan liked to pull off all the petals. So I discouraged him from touching them, but then our neighbor came out. He clipped a couple of pansies, and placed them in Jordan's reaching hand. Jordan pulled off some of the petals, but he held the flowers securely in one hand, and the rock in the other. He held out his fist, clenched around the rock, for me to hold as we continued our walk.

Jordan dropped both the rock and the flowers when he saw the stick. It was a stick of medium thickness, and just long enough to reach from his hand to the ground at an angle. Jordan had learned to walk with push toys, and now the stick was his push toy. He moved it over the cement, along the grass, and through the dirt. He took the stick with him as we went back inside, and I scooped up the discarded pansies.

As I put the pansies in water, I had time to reflect about this special walk we had just taken. I could have walked around the cul de sac by myself in a little over a minute. With Jordan, if we kept "focused" and "directed" about our walk, we could have made it around in about five minutes. However, walking and playing outside can be a time for children to be together, and parents to be with their children. It can be a special time of discovery, and a time for parents to watch their children explore, and learn more about the world we all live in. Best of all, as a parent, you get to look at the world with the freshness, innocence, and joy of your wondering child.


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