I’m not sure exactly when we first noticed him; but at some point several years ago, he caught our attention along the daily drive to school. Ever since, my son, Jonah, and I look for him, eagerly, each morning.
The elderly man is a wrinkly, crotchety-looking fellow. Even in warm weather, he is bundled up in a dark jacket, with long pants. In colder weather, he adds a wool cap, scarf and gloves. He also wears large, dark sunglasses, even when there’s heavy coastal fog.
But his most distinguishing feature, by far, is that he walks backwards.
He never looks over his shoulder to check to see if there are any hazards on the path ahead. Nor does he look down at his feet, or up to the sky. He looks straight out, in the opposite direction from which he is headed, back at the places he has already passed.
He walks slowly, but steadily, backwards. He looks frail, but determined. He never smiles; and a long-established frown is further emphasized by the crevices of old age.
“There he is!” Jonah tends to announce, while breaking into a big grin. Jonah almost always sees him first. “Backwards Walking Guy!”
Jonah rides in the front seat these days.
We don’t see Backwards Walking Guy every day, but we do see him regularly. He is typically spotted along the same stretch of sidewalk, several blocks from the school.
“Why does he walk backwards?”
“Maybe he thinks it’s healthier.”
“Or maybe his doctor told him to do that.”
“I wonder where he lives?”
“He must just walk around and around the same block.”
“What if he bumps into something?”
“It does seem dangerous.”
During all of our many morning drives to school, the discussion of why Backwards Walking Guy walks backwards has never gotten old. Each day, Jonah and I launch into various theories as we drive past his spot. Additionally, we like to wonder where he’s going, and ponder the many dangers of this particular method of exercise.
After our daily speculation about Backwards Walking Guy, I ask Jonah what is happening at school that day. He tells me about an upcoming math test, or a speech he is working on, or his opinion of the weekly writing assignment. Sometimes, he explains an elaborate playground game that started the day before at recess, and that he hopes will continue.
He finishes talking as we pull up alongside the school. As the engine idles, he says, “I love you” several times, but always before he opens the car door so that nobody, besides me, hears him. Then he looks around, to see if anyone else is nearby. If the coast is clear, he gives me a quick kiss on the cheek before he is off for the day.
He never looks back.
At some point last year, I realized we hadn’t seen Backwards Walking Guy for some time and started to get worried. Was he sick? Had he tripped and hurt himself, as I’d always felt was inevitable? As the weeks went on with no sign of him, I even wondered if he had died. How would we ever know? Jonah and I discussed this, over a series of mornings, as we drove by his empty stretch of sidewalk.
Then, one day, Backwards Walking Guy simply reappeared. Same spot, same jacket, same sunglasses, same backwards walking. We sighed with relief, and began to speculate on where he had been.
“He doesn’t look like he’s been sick.”
“Or injured.”
“Maybe he took a cruise around the world.”
“Or maybe he just got sick of walking backwards.”
Often, as we drive past Backwards Walking Guy, we consider stopping to ask him why he walks in this manner -- though we never actually have. That’s partly because it might make Jonah late to school, but mostly, I think, because we both enjoy guessing more than we actually want to know.
Jonah is my youngest. He is now in sixth grade, and only has a week to go before graduating from elementary school. Next year, he’ll walk or bike to the middle school, which is much closer to our home. In many ways, I look forward to his increased independence; I won’t have to get up quite so early, and I won’t have to stop whatever I’m doing each afternoon to rush back to school for pick-up.
But I will miss our morning drives. I will miss his simple excitement about what games to play at recess, along with whatever else he looks forward to each day. And, I will miss talking about Backwards Walking Guy.
One morning, recently, Jonah and I acquired a new, unexpected perspective on Backwards Walking Guy. I’m not sure if he was late or we were early, but instead of walking backwards along his usual route, Backwards Walking Guy was still crossing the street that led over to it.
We waited, speechless, at the intersection’s stop sign while he crossed right in front of our car.
Backwards Walking Guy was walking -- forwards!
After he cleared the intersection, I proceeded cautiously. Jonah looked back over his shoulder to see what would happen when Forwards Walking Guy reached the full safety of his usual stretch of sidewalk.
“He turned around!” Jonah exclaimed. “He’s walking backwards again!”
Soon, I won’t be needed to drive Jonah to school anymore. Soon, he’ll drift away into those elusive teenage years – as his older brother already has -- when everything is either “boring” or a vague, disgruntled grunt. Soon, I worry that I won’t be needed by anyone.
I find myself, once again, at one of life’s intersections. If I look back behind me, I see my boys’ younger years – the innocence, yes, but also the tantrums and the diapers and the overall exhaustion. No, I really don’t miss any of that. However, if I look ahead, I see them both moving away from me, off to their futures. Of course, I know this is inevitable, but I’m just not quite ready.
It may be true that Backwards Walking Man is somewhat unconventional, but I’m also starting to understand why heading in a forward trajectory might not always be so simple. The older I get, and the more my boys grow, the more I find myself looking back on life, too. Maybe if I close my eyes -- and if I stay real still -- I can hold my youngest boy right here, right next to my heart, for just a little while longer.