Footprints in the Sand

Walking your son to school is that rare half-hour when it's just the two of you, living in the moment. It's a luxury not everyone has.

And if you're walking, even better. The journey feels like a shared adventure, setting the stage for seemingly random but deeply important conversations. Who built the first school? Why does a scratch disappear? How does a car drive? Answering these questions is like discovering new planets. It's a journey into the unknown that stays with you forever.

Our walk to school took us down Hessa Street, bordered by a strip of desert. It was a five-minute stretch, but we've built years' worth of stories along that path. Stories tied to the footprints in the sand that we learned to read. A truck drove by here. A bird walked there. A cat darted through.

But the most fascinating prints were our own. Yesterday's footprints became a treasure we hunted for, stopping on the roadside, oblivious to the traffic rushing by. "Here's where I walked yesterday!" "Exactly." "And here's the spot from the day before!" "Maybe." "These? These are ancient, from last week!" Those prints had nearly faded.

One night, it rained, and by morning, the sand was covered in a dry, crusty layer. Every trace of our steps was gone. We tried to find even one old footprint where we'd left it, but there was no hope. The rain had washed the sand off the hills, and puddles filled the dips. For a moment, we felt sad about our lost work, days of steps wiped away.

Then Leo, full of pride, stepped boldly into the untouched sand, lifting his legs high and making the first deep, new footprints. Pure joy! Like Christopher Columbus or Yuri Gagarin, he smiled and charged ahead into the unknown, leaving his fresh footprints behind.

We began spending ten or fifteen minutes on that five-minute walk, searching for old footprints and making new ones. This game never grew old.

On my way back alone, my mind shifted to work. Deadlines, calls to make, things to say. As I walked along the roadside, I saw Leo's fresh footprints, the ones he'd just left. Tiny, familiar, and beloved. They were moving away, back in the direction I had come from. I stopped and stared at them. The footprints were here, but Leo was gone.

My heart tightened. I felt like I'd lost him. He'd gone ahead, further along, and I was left behind, seeing only his footprints. How was he doing? Was he okay? I worried. But his footprints were steady and sure, as if to reassure me that Leo was just fine.

Beside his prints were mine, left by my Nike sneakers—big, stylish, and proud. How silly. By tomorrow, they'll be blown away. Or it will rain again, and what then? What's the point of wearing trendy sneakers if there's not even a trace left of them? In time, even Leo will forget them. And then what? Emptiness.

Quantum physics says everything in the world is connected, entangled. When we take a step here, something shifts over there. Nothing goes unnoticed. I always thought such ideas were just comforting tales for old folks or people who never achieved anything significant—people who didn't leave their mark, unlike Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Darwin, Tchaikovsky, or Jobs.

But now I see the world differently. What did it cost me to realize this? I spent twenty years of my life chasing a single goal: to make history. To achieve it. To touch that goal and then realize it changed nothing for me. To feel disappointment. To stop wanting anything. To deconstruct myself down to the foundation. To confront death. To remember that everything I truly value in life has been with me all along. To finally respect myself for that and make time for it. To accept my role and play it well. To love myself and my family. To cherish every minute spent together.

And to start walking my son to school.