Swimming Through Time

The storm outside my window reminds me of summers at Grandma's house, where we'd sit on her porch watching lightning stitch across the sky like God's own embroidery. She taught me that every flash was a story—short, brilliant, gone before you could catch your breath.

Last evening, my great-grandson Timmy asked about the old photograph on my mantel. 'That's you swimming in Miller's Creek?' he pointed, incredulous. 'Without a cable? No safety line?'

I laughed. 'Timmy, the only cable we knew was the kind that brought electricity to the farmhouse, and even that was new.'

But the real magic happened at dusk. Grandma would stand by the garden fence, waiting. 'Here comes our teacher,' she'd whisper, and there he'd be—a red fox with the wisdom of a thousand summers in his golden eyes. He never approached too close, but he watched us with such patience, such ancient knowing.

'What's he teaching us?' I'd ask at seven years old.

'That some things,' Grandma said, 'cannot be rushed. That the finest moments are the ones you don't try to catch.'

Now, at seventy-eight, watching Timmy swipe through screens and demand instant everything, I understand what the fox knew. We're all swimming through time, but some of us race to the other shore while others learn to float in the current.

The lightning still flashes. The fox's descendants still roam those hills. And I still swim—though nowadays it's mostly through memories, warm and safe, knowing that what matters isn't how fast you cross, but who's waiting on the bank to help you ashore.

'Grandma?' Timmy interrupts my reverie. 'Were you ever afraid of the lightning?'

I smile, hearing Grandma's voice again: 'Fear, child, is just love looking for something to hold onto.'