The Importance of Walking

Three years after her diagnosis, my mother continues to take hour-long walks around the neighborhood.  She traverses sidewalks to form a giant circle then goes straight for a mile and back again.  My family worries that one day she won’t come back, but we don’t have the heart to prevent her from going.  

She sticks to her route and always finds her way home.  

My father gets her a silver id bracelet just in case.  He stores it for a year before giving it to her on her 57^th birthday.  She does not realize what it is, but she never takes it off because it is the last piece of jewelry he gives her. 

She navigates her route almost every weekday by herself, often mumbling that she doesn’t “have anything else to do.” Really, her routine is much more important than a time-filler.  

For nearly twenty years, my mother set out on six-mile walks almost every morning.  Sometimes she walked with friends, otherwise headphones kept her company.  Toting one Walkman after another, she listened to mixed tapes of ABBA, Ace of Base, classic ‘70s, and up-tempo ‘80s.  

As I grew up, walks also functioned as a mode for serious conversations.  Subjects of importance would illicit especially long conversations, and discussions about my father or my sister’s health or my other sister’s academic plans would go on for miles.  Ironically, my mother’s own health never came up on those walks, even after I noticed she was having problems.  

When we walk now, she does not speak much, but she asks about the same topics.  I say that I think everyone is okay, and we continue for a few more paces in silence.  Mid-stride, she asks again, and I reply the same. 

And so we travel along the sidewalk, our conversation heard only through the echo of our footsteps.