Looking Back

Just across the street and down a ways from where I lived as a boy was the home of two of my mother’s first cousins.  They were sisters.  They were just a little older than her.  They were amazingly talented women and close enough to us that we referred to them both as “aunt”.  As was common among people of my town and time, they had a huge garden adjacent to their house.  It was large enough that they used a push cultivator between the rows of their garden.  I was old enough to want to do more adult things but still too young to actually do them.  On one occasion I was at Aunt Lou Ray’s house.  She was pushing the cultivator in her garden.  I wanted to help.  She suggested I could do it by myself, an offer I readily accepted, at least until I tried it.  I couldn’t push it at all.  If the tines dug into the earth even a bit it stalled despite all my strength.  Regardless of her encouragement, I couldn’t get the cultivator to move forward.  In defeat I asked for her help.  She said she would.  I stood in front of her with her hands below and behind mine on the handles.  With her strength added to my minuscule muscles the cultivator almost flew along.  I was impressed that she could make it move so quickly.  I told her that, but she didn’t reply.  I thought that was odd so I repeated it.  Still she didn’t reply.  This was so out of character for her that I turned my head to speak to her directly.  To my amazement, she wasn’t right behind me.  She was twenty yards behind me.  I was astounded.  How could that be?  She was smiling.  As it dawned on me that I had been pushing the cultivator by myself, I could hardly believe it, but there she was, a long way behind me.  There was only one set of footprints for those twenty yards and they were mine.  Of all the lessons I mention here, this was the most profound.  Questions flooded my mind.  Why hadn’t I been able to push the cultivator by myself when I knew it was only me but could push it when I thought I had help?  How did she know I could push it by myself?  If I was capable of something I’d just moments before thought was impossible, what else was I capable of?  That happened to me almost sixty years ago but I can see her standing in that row smiling at me as if it happened this morning.  I wonder if she’d still be smiling if she was looking down my row now.