A quiet thought...

We had snow over the weekend -- a couple of inches, then some light freezing drizzle on top of that. It was just enough that it made a nice crunch-crunch sound as I walked Alex out to the road to get on his bus. I lifted him over the snow bank at the edge of the road, and waved as they drove off. I turned around and as I looked up towards the house I saw two sets of foot prints, mine -- and my fathers.

I remember a time when I was younger -- not as young as Alex, but still young enough for my dad to be a big man. We were walking downtown by the Bank, and I noticed that as he walked, his foot prints showed that his left foot turned out a little more than his right. I asked him about it, but it was something he never noticed before. We kept going down the street, probably to stop by the village hall for something, and I never thought about it again.

Until this morning, as I looked toward the house and saw those footprints with the left foot turned out a little more than the right -- side by side with the footprints of his son.