Walking Sticks

I'd learned to love a good walk from my grandfather, who like me was most at ease in the quiet. We'd pick up horse chestnuts, when shiny rocks, and look for birds' nests in the trees. Getting back lots of those tracks had seemed like epic safaris at the time. But he'd always kept an eye out for a walking stick for me as we went, and we'd found one nearly every time. He'd saved them one by one, and kept them all these years. It was the only thing I'd asked for, from all the things we packed and sorted. They were all my walking sticks, from our adventures.