Footprints — September, 2007
By what tool did I come to see what was not there? With the powerful looking glass of hindsight, I assure you. That myopia of the present saw to it that I did not see it then, but that I should have to hurt through it to see it now. And so it passed. And I share.
We know the ways of speaking without words are many. I can speak anywhere across the spectrum of love and contempt with a gesture. I can invite you or turn you away with a glance. No words need leave my lips. My tongue may rest. I can brighten your day with a touch or ease your burden by my act. And from this behavior alone you shall know your importance to me. By and by, my vocal chords slumber.
In the odd way life plays, I come only now to see significance lies also in the absence of the absence of the words. To wit, be wary in loved company when she employs only a vocabulary of words. A vocabulary without words speaks beyond the message to familiarity, to trust, to comfort, to love.
And to these things I desire loved ones speak—with and without words.
Alas, through my looking glass of hindsight, I see now, clearly, that never her footprints were left upon my dashboard. And our road trips were many.
~ topher