What the Bull Taught Me
Margaret sat on her front porch swing, the iPhone her granddaughter had given her resting on the wicker table like a small, mysterious visitor from another planet. At seventy-eight, she'd lived through wars, raised four children, and buried her beloved husband of fifty-two years. Yet this sleek glass device somehow felt more foreign than any of life'sçśźćŁçš„ challenges.
Her youngest grandson, ten-year-old Toby, marched up the driveway with his head down, thumbs flying across his own phone like he was composing a symphony. "Grandma, have you seen my charger?" he mumbled, eyes never leaving the screen.
Margaret smiled gently. "You look like one of those zombies from the movies your mother watches."
Toby finally looked up, blinking as if waking from a trance. "What's a zombie, Grandma?"
She chuckled, remembering how her own grandchildren moved through the world now—sleepwalking through gardens they never noticed, sunsets they never saw, conversations they barely heard. "Someone who's forgotten how to really live, sweet pea. Someone who's just going through the motions."
That evening, as Margaret scrolled through family photos on her new iPhone, she found herself transported back to 1952, to her father's farm in Iowa. The summer she turned fourteen, she'd been tasked with bringing Old Major—the family's massive prize bull—from the pasture to the barn.
The bull had stood his ground, stubborn as a mule, his great hooved feet planted in the dusty earth. Young Margaret had tugged and pleaded, tears of frustration stinging her eyes. Her father had watched from the porch, pipe in hand, until finally calling out, "Margaret, sometimes you can't force things. Sometimes you have to walk beside them and lead them where they already want to go."
She'd walked slowly alongside Old Major, talking softly about nothing important, until he'd followed her willingly to the barn.
Now, Margaret looked at her iPhone and thought about her grandchildren—these beautiful, brilliant children who moved through the world zombie-like, their faces illuminated by screens. She realized what she needed to do. Instead of fighting against this new world, she would learn to walk beside it, to lead them back to what mattered.
She picked up the phone and texted Toby: "Come over tomorrow at sunrise. I want to show you something beautiful."
The next morning, she waited on the porch, iPhone in her pocket, ready to capture the sunrise with her grandson—and perhaps, just perhaps, wake them both from the spell that kept them from truly living.