I have only a handful of pictures of me as a kid. But tonight I was taken back to this picture from the birthday for which my parents sacrificed to buy me this sweet bike. It had safety pads for tricks!
While Googling a property I was advertising, I found it near the house where I lived during kindergarten and first grade. I navigated with Street View until I arrived at our old place. A flood of vivid memories overwhelmed me. My chest drew tight. My eyes got moist.
This Chattanooga house has been renovated since I lived there: different windows and siding. Someone scraped these tiles off the concrete porch. The elderly neighbor probably entered her rest decades ago. Her massive oak is also long gone.
I’ve been renovated, too, in the 40 years since that birthday. I now have a much heavier knobby-tired bike, a different faith, and a much bigger world. I wish I could sit with that kid for an hour—to look in his eyes and say the things I still have to convince my heart to believe.
In lieu of that opportunity, I try to look into the eyes of my nieces, nephews, and little friends and give them the gift of being seen—of being the object of curiosity. It’s fascinating how giving love away so often leaves us with more love than before we gifted some to others.
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