By Brittany Casselman
PROMPT — Who am I today?
I was walking home from church on Sunday. It was probably my first time walking home since getting a husband and therefore a car, thus negating any reason for me to walk if I could help it. On a normal Sunday I would have already been home, crashed on the couch in my comfy sweats instead of crossing the street in the blistering cold, but my husband’s new responsibilities kept him at church until much later in the day, leaving me to struggle the five blocks between the church building and my apartment.
(It really wasn’t that much of a struggle; I was just cold.)
I was hungry and trying to remind myself that sacrifice had always been a staple at our church, and my only thought was to walk through the park as quickly as I could, plotting the most direct course home, until I saw you.
Now, to anyone worried, this isn’t going to be creepy. In fact, I was very careful to keep my distance for that specific reason, but something caught my attention and wouldn’t let it go. You were just a boy, probably nine or ten years old, walking through the park on a Sunday afternoon, probably on the way home from church yourself. There was nothing there that would normally catch my eye, except that every few feet you would stop, stare at the ground in front of you, crouch down, and pick up a leaf.
The first leaf I noticed you pick up was a bright yellow leaf that was bigger than your head. To this day, I have no idea where you found such an enormous leaf. In fact, I think that might have been what first caught my attention—the leaf bigger than your head blowing in the wind like the flag of some proud nation. And while I watched, you reached down and picked up another leaf. And another.
There didn’t seem to be any pattern to which leaves you chose—I guess there rarely is with leaves on the ground. You just walked down the sidewalk, a boy with no parents to be seen and no coat to keep you warm on a thirty-degree afternoon, picking up leaves at random in this park. And for whatever reason, I could not look away.
It could have been the lack of coat—I also was a coat-less traveler on that chilly Sunday afternoon. It could have been that you didn’t stop at the playground, or the mural of the world, or any of the war monuments that scattered the park. But I think it was the deliberation of the act that truly kept my attention. Besides your canary-yellow trophy, the rest of the leaves you picked weren’t brightly colored or unique in any way, but you considered them all as if you knew they would become your greatest treasure.
There’s something about that image that I just can’t shake, and multiple days later I keep coming back to you in the park picking up leaves on that Sunday afternoon, and how perfectly picturesque that was. How it left this feeling in my gut that I can’t quite describe.
Life is so loud when you’re older. There are so many things that grab at your attention all the time, and they can leave you trying to just protect your peace and take care of what you can. Once you’ve grown up about 15 years or so, you probably won’t have the thought to crouch down at the park and make a bouquet of leaves simply because you can. You’ll be rushing home because you’re cold and hungry and the house is a mess and your homework’s not done and you have to be at your parents’ house for Sunday dinner in an hour. And when you hit that point—even though I hope you won’t—I hope you see a boy about your age now in the park collecting leaves. I hope you slow down and take the time to just watch him.
After watching you in the park on that chilly Sunday afternoon, I followed your example and found a leaf of my own. I brought it home and put it on my kitchen table, where it has stayed ever since. It’s half-golden and half-green, soft on one side and rough on the other. It can’t seem to make up its mind what it wants to be yet, and it fell off the tree before it had the chance, so now it’s stuck in the in-between for the rest of its life. I picked up that leaf because you inspired me, but I keep it because I understand how it feels.
I hope you make up your mind about what you want to be before it’s too late. I hope the person that you become stays someone who walks home from church in just a suit coat in thirty-degree weather by yourself and stops in the park to pick up leaves. I hope you keep that stillness, that reverence for nature, that wonder for the world.
And if you don’t, then I hope one day you see a little boy who does. And I hope you pick up a leaf.
Brittany Casselman is currently working on an undergraduate degree in communications with a minor in creative writing from Brigham Young University. She enjoys writing, service, and making dumb jokes, though lately her favorite hobbies include sleep and finding desserts that don’t aggravate her stomach problems. Brittany writes from Provo, UT.
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