If You Could Have Seen It Then

If You Could Have Seen It Then

The little girl was walking on the hot asphalt looking at the buildings that lined the shore of the bay. Her grandfather was holding her hand and gently guiding her toward the only area where she could see the water that wasn’t obstructed by a building. As they walked past the buildings they could see a flicker of sun shining on the water for a second or two before the next building blocked their view.

The little girl looked up at her grandfather and asked, “Are we almost there?” The old man looked down at her and said in a low whisper, “Yes.” The little girl thought her grandfather was sad but she couldn’t understand why since they were almost at the place where there were no buildings and they would be able to walk to the water.

When they got to the space where they could walk to the water the little girl smiled and looked down at her reflection in the Bay. She could see the reflection of her grandfather standing next to her but he wasn’t smiling. “At one time”….., the old man started to talk but had to clear his throat, “ the parking lot we walked on was a small forest with all types of trees and birds and other animals. My friends and I would walk the trails every weekend and sometimes we would even camp out. We would bring our fishing poles and fish just a little ways from here down the shore.”

The little girl looked back at the asphalt parking lot and notice there were no trees, just some bushes along the road side of the parking lot. And the place where her grandfather said he had fished had a building on stilts sitting out over the shore into the bay. She looked back in the water at their reflections and said, “What happened to the forest?”

The grandfather looked down at her for a few seconds then said, “I don’t know….maybe we took the forest for granted and thought it would always be here. After a while people stopped coming to this area then I think they just stopped caring about it….we all stopped caring about it.”

The little girl was thinking about what her grandfather had said and just then she saw a small ripple in the water, distorting her reflection. It looked like rain drops hitting the water. But the sun was shining and she didn’t notice any clouds. She turned and looked up at her grandfather who had turned away from the water. His head was tilted down and his hands were over his eyes.

“If I were here when they had the forest I would have helped to keep it here.” The little girl looked up at her grandfather hoping her words would help his sadness. The old man looked at her with a weak smile.”If I had thought about this..If I had cared about it…If I had known this was the future…….If you could have seen it then!”