It's Not About The Hike.

It's not about the hike

Brody and I hiking Crystal Falls For Terry Fox's 40th Marathon of Hope Brody and I hiked Crystal Falls in Coquitlam, British Columbia. In the summer Gian and I had taken the grandsons for several hikes and when I asked Brody what he wanted for his birthday he said "Nonna all I want is to do a special hike with you alone for our birthdays". Why this is special, it's because he is my first grandson and he was born on my 49th birthday. He absolutely loves nature and I was in my glory knowing he and I would have this special hike. ​ With COVID I couldn't go out to buy him what I wanted but I quickly learned to love Amazon. I bought him hiking boots (a size bigger as I want to do many hike before he grows out of them), socks, a back pack, water bottle, first aid kit, hand sanitizer and a few books on hiking. We both added some snacks to our packs and headed out at 8:15 am to do the hike. I of course started walking at my fast pace but within minutes Brody was veering off to adventure into the mountain. Whether it was a stream that flowed to the river. a funny looking dead tree that he said looked like a shark eating him up, jumping in the puddles, looking for bugs, saving the moths from the puddles or chasing after the mole and mouse, I quickly realized I wasn't there for the hike. I was there to follow my close to 8 year old grandson and look at the mountain through his eyes. Enjoy the beauty of the nature around us. I don't know how many time he said "Nonna look at this" and I was looking at whatever he was showing me through his eyes. I got the most out of this hike than any hike I ever did because I got to see it through his eyes. He brought me down to a level of enjoying a snail slithering across the path and talking about how beautiful it was. He had never seen a mole in real life so we followed that mole for almost ten minutes to see where it would go. ​ During this walk I learned to live a little more in the moment and pretend I was an eight year old child doing the hike for the very first time. Last week one of my employees Peter asked me during my one-on-one with him if there was anything I would have done different in life and I said to him that I would have started to hike and walk a lot younger because I absolutely love it. But since I've started later in life I'm going to take every moment I can to share it with my grandsons. Have them enjoy what I missed as a child and hopefully share many many more moments like this. Enjoy your journey of learning new things and reflect on what you would have done differently. Because while we are still on this beautiful planet we call earth we can change anything and hike doesn't have to be just a hike. Have an amazing day!