Grandma Gatewood I Am Not

Emma Rowena Caldwell Gatewood. Maybe you have heard of her. Maybe you haven’t. I was introduced to her a number of years ago through a book written of her life: “Grandma Gatewood’s Walk.” And what a walk it was. After a very difficult life as a farm wife, a mother to eleven children and a survivor of domestic abuse, in 1955 at the age of 67, she hung up her apron and told her children she was going for a walk — and that she did, setting her feet on the Appalachian Trail, becoming the first solo woman to hike the entire 2,168 miles. And she didn’t do it just once, but three times. Her story is a fascinating one and worth the read. 

But Grandma Gatewood I am not. In fact, there’s nothing about our lives that intertwine. For starters, I have never even set my foot on the Appalachian Trail — though I would like to one day.

However, I did take a couple of hikes last week as my husband and I spent a few days in the north Georgia mountains. The first was a 2.65 mile trek around a lake. It was listed as “easy” as far as trails go. And it was. Just the normal roots and slippery terrain that might be conducive to a path after a rain. But both beautiful and peaceful.

The next day we upped our game and took the “moderate” 2.93 mile hike on Bottom Loop Trail. My first clue should have been the deep descent toward the beginning of our adventure. Though I had already figured it out, my husband turned around and said, “This is what makes it ‘moderate,’ because the only way out is back up.” But down we went; and the further in, the further down. 

As a good wife should, I let my husband take the lead. Not because I’m naturally submissive or anything, but because as a man of the woods himself, he knows how to look for snakes and where to place his feet and that was important to me. He also knocked the cobwebs out of the way which was a plus. My job, however, was self imposed. While watching where I placed my feet, I also looked for bears. After all, prior to checking into our lodge, I had to sign a bear waiver. Yes, you read that correctly. A BEAR WAIVER. Why else would I have to sign a bear waiver if there weren’t any bears to waiver? So I kept my eyes open and quietly rehearsed bear protocol in my mind, from everything to remaining calm and moving away quietly in the opposite direction to just running faster than my husband. I also wished I had read up on the “natural” bug spray I had doused myself with before heading out. Did it repel, attract, or aggravate the bears I had waivered? Hmm.

As a forester’s wife, I have been deep in the woods many times, but always in a truck or at least a near proximity to it. Never in a place such as this … on foot with no “service” should I need it. In all seriousness though, it was a beautiful hike, taking us deep into the forest floor where the most brilliant orange mushrooms grew out of trees, where the birds called to one another in lyrical song, and the sound and sight of flowing water tumbling over rocks was a constant. To be in the bowels of God’s creation was just as breathtaking and exhilarating as being in the heights. 

But there was one thing of which I was constantly aware (other than the bears, of course), and that was the wind. Both its presence and the lack of. At times my husband and I both would stretch out our arms and feel it whipping all around us. How could it even find us down there? At other times, we couldn’t feel it, but we could hear its effects high in the trees above us with both the leaves rustling or branches breaking. And then there were moments of intense stillness. Knowing it was there, because we were still breathing, but hearing or feeling nothing.

How could I not think of Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus when He told him, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” The Spirit as wind. The “Ruach”. The Breath of God. I was also reminded of the ways I have experienced that “Wind” in my own life. There are times that I stretch out my arms and can feel His presence, dancing and twirling, both spiritually and physically, to His refreshment. There are other times when I can listen and know that He is moving about me by what I hear or see. Music. Art. Creation. Faces. Voices. But there are also times when I am bereft of any feeling or awareness except to know that I am still breathing. But even in those moments, I can be assured of His presence because I have the story of Elijah in I Kings 19:11-13 that speaks of the Lord in the stillness. In the silence. In the “bereftness.”

Whether Grandma Gatewood put her faith in the Creator of creation, we are not told. But what I do know is that He walked every step of the way with her whether she acknowledged Him or not … because that is what He does and who He is. Surely she felt the wind, she heard its sounds, and she breathed its air. She walked in its mystery just as we all do. Oh, that we would not miss Him, but that we would have ears, eyes and hearts to know Him, to experience Him, as He reveals Himself to us in such profoundly mysterious ways.

As for the bears, except for the two large, dark logs that I momentarily misinterpreted, the only ones I saw were ones that had been preserved at the hands of a taxidermist and now stand rampant in an exhibit at the top of the world, or at least Georgia’s highest summit: Brasstown Bald. Turns out I didn’t have to try to outrun my husband after all. For as the saying goes, when chased by a wild animal, you don’t have to be the fastest; you just don’t want to be the slowest.

Just an ordinary moment…