Day 359 Hidden Narrative

December 3, 2015

(If we live with an open and grateful attitude, every day will bring a gift. This is one of 365 gifts during the year I turned 70.)

It’s funny how I can walk the same path for many days and on my 50^th trip, I find something I hadn’t noticed before. Today as I walked in Downs Park, I went along the path from the regular beach toward the dog beach. There is a sign for the dog beach with an arrow that is located on step seats overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. I’ve walked by here hundreds of times but I must not have sat on the steps recently because all I needed was about 12 more inches in height in order to notice something special. It was only by stepping up on the bottom step that I could see a group of painted stones with words and numbers written on them.

I was intrigued. At first, I thought maybe these stones were a memorial to deceased pets but the names were not typical pet names. Those having dates on them had only one date. Was it a birth date or a death date? 

Curious about the story behind these stones, I asked a park ranger in the main office. There was a story. I learned that a group of families who had lost babies in birth or shortly after birth had asked the park for permission to put this handmade memorial in the park in a perfect location overlooking the Bay. They were probably looking for closure and something tangible in a natural setting. Now that I know the narrative, the stones have become something more beautiful, a spot for me to stop each day. I learned that just one step can make a difference.

My gift today is one step up.

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> Day 360: Connecting the Dots


You can find links to my other posts on this project here:
http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html