ALEDA J. MARSHALL

Time has stooped her back, slowed her steps, and placed a cane in her hands... yet it forgot the little girl she still carries within. An elderly lady walks slowly, while ahead of her, her shadow tells a completely different story: it does not follow the cane, knows no fatigue, and does not count the years. It wears pigtails and skips along carefreely, just as it did when the world was vast and it took so little to be happy. "We grow old on the outside long before we do on the inside!" "Years count our steps; memories preserve the ones we took while running." "Childhood ends on the calendar, not necessarily in the soul." "Time changes our bodies, but it cannot always convince our hearts of our age." Perhaps this is one of life's sweetest ironies: as children, we run because we want to grow up, yet once we finally do, we would give anything to go back—even for just one afternoon—and skip about without a care for the time. She moves slowly, her cane tapping against the stone... yet her shadow seems to whisper: "Don't worry, I am still here." And perhaps, deep within each of us, the child we once were keeps walking, waiting only for a ray of sunshine to bring them back into view. Look closely at that shadow: do you think it represents a memory of the past... or the part of us that will never grow old?