When I was 7 years old my parents sat my 5 year old sister and me down on the couch in our family room to tell us some big news. We would soon have a new brother or sister. This, for some reason I don’t recall and probably couldn’t even explain back then, greatly upset me and I ran out the room refusing to talk about it. My dad came and found me and asked me to go on a walk with him. I agreed and we put on our coats and shoes and walked the long route up and over the hill behind our house. I don’t remember what was said but I do remember that the walk with my dad calmed me and by the time we returned home I was ready to have a new brother or sister in my life; even looking forward to it.

(It was a brother. A few years later a sister came into our family but by then I was 12 years old and just rolled my eyes when I found out, highly embarrassed that my mom could even be pregnant.)

Walks have always been a big part of our family life. I’ve been told that I originally was not interested and as a toddler would trail behind my parents crying because I didn’t want to walk. They’d wave at neighbors shrugging their shoulders, pretending to have no idea whose screaming kid that was following them. But eventually I accepted the family walks and then grew to enjoy them.

When I was in grade school we lived in Wisconsin and my memories of those walks are accompanied by the sound of melting snow and deep red and orange sunsets. As soon as it got warm enough (Wisconsin warm that is) we would bundle up and get outside for a quick walk. Summers in Wisconsin are short but beautiful and we would take advantage of the long days, walking to meadows that boarded our neighborhood. To this day there are certain wildflowers and bird songs that remind me of those walks through sweet smelling colorful fields.

A few times a year my dad would take my sister and me up a large hill across from where we lived. The rutted trail wound through a forest and eventually ended up at a lookout where you could look down on our neighborhood and out further to the town we lived in. I was so proud to hike up that hill and loved the view.

Our family eventually moved south to the St. Louis area, but the walks with my dad continued. The neighborhood was fairly new and our walks would take us to explore the construction sites of houses going up; walking through the houses, commenting on what we liked, which room would be ours, and wondering who would eventually move into the house. Walks at night in the summer were my favorite. The Missouri humidity would wrap around you like a warm blanket as we walked past neighbors grilling and enjoying the evening on their patios while fireflies blinked all around us.

After I moved out, any time I would come home one of the first things I would do was go on a walk with my dad. We would catch up on life walking side by side in all types of weather. Nothing was off the table- politics, God’s grace, family drama, our jobs, what we would eat for dinner; we discussed it all and came up with solutions for most of it. Although we might never have shared the family drama “solutions” with anyone else. I remember one walk we rounded a corner and there was a large black bear eating a plant in front of us. He looked up at us, we looked at him, said hi, and kept walking while he went back to eating the branches, all of us completely unfazed.

Soon my kids joined us on our walks. I’d push them in a stroller as we walked around the neighborhood, often venturing into surrounding streets and neighborhoods to keep the walk going; neither of us ready to stop.

One day, shortly after I had my 3rd child, we took a long walk. It was one of those days that had a timelessness feeling- warm and gray and damp- I remember having a moment of confusion as to where I was and what time of year it was, my mind clouded by the exhaustion of caring for a newborn and his two young siblings. There’s no doubt in my mind, though, that those long walks when my kids were young kept me sane.

We would often go on vacations with my parents. Two favorite places were the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York and to the 30A section on the panhandle of Florida. As soon as we would arrive, we would dump our luggage into the house and go on a walk. Sometimes it was just me and my dad, and other times various kids and family members would join us. Often times on those vacations I would wake up very early to the smell of coffee and know that my dad was awake. I would jump out of bed and the two of us would go on a sunrise walk well before anyone else was stirred. Those were some of my favorite times.

A few years ago my parents moved to Tennessee, not far from where we live. My dad and I would often text each other to see if the other wanted to walk after work. Dogs replaced strollers and we circled the neighborhood and town trails discussing life, jobs, my now teenage kids, and of course our newest babies- the dogs. We walked in all kinds of weather, from bitterly cold windy days to the hot and humid summer evenings where a stop at the creek halfway through was required to cool off the dogs.

Then, one day I got a call from my parents to come over. They sat my husband and me down and let us know that my dad had been diagnosed with glioblastoma, a highly aggressive form of brain cancer with no cure. He had actually first realized something was wrong while taking a walk with my mom. She noticed one of his feet slightly dragging as he walked. His prognosis was 12-18 months. Our lives had changed forever.

He had surgery and the week after it, I stayed with my parents. For the first time ever I walked their dogs without my dad. It was such a lonely and scary time with so much uncertainty, yet the walks once again kept me sane. I continued to walk the dogs during that time, often using those walks to mourn my dad. He was still alive, but I was losing him more and more each day. And no longer being able to walk together was one of the hardest things to process.

Last year on Strava, an exercise tracking social media app, I found our last “regular” walk together. It was just a week or so before he went to the doctor and was diagnosed with brain cancer. On Stava you can see the day and time and the map of the loop we walked. It’s around 2.5 miles and I have no pictures or comments from that walk. It was just a normal walk on a normal day and we probably talked about very normal, mundane things. And I liked that.

My dad passed away in March, 18 months after being diagnosed with glioblastoma. I still walk the dogs. Sometimes I’m accompanied by my kids and sometimes I’m alone. I often want to be alone, just me and the dogs, but when I am accompanied by my kids and family members I try to remember how much I cherished those walks with my dad and try to offer to them what my dad did to me- his presence and the opportunity to walk side by side and discuss life.