Grandmas on the Move

We never know what invitations and challenges life will bring us or how they might change us. In this episode, I share the story of Grandma Gatewood, who walked the Appalachian Trail alone at 67, and a journey of my own that began with a simple question—what if I said yes? It’s a reflection on resilience, becoming, and the quiet strength we discover when we keep going.

If something in today’s Cuppa stirred a thought or a memory, sparked a question, or simply made you want to reach out, I’d love to hear from you. Write to me at robyn@delongteam.com

Transcript

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There are moments in life when we are invited into something that will change us. Hi, this is Robin. I'm so glad you're here. If something you hear today speaks to you, I'd love to hear from you. You'll find my email in the episode notes. This week's cup of joy is called Grandmas on the Move. There are moments in life when we are given an unexpected invitation, not just to do something difficult, but to meet someone we have not yet become. I've been reading about Grandma Gatewood, a 67-year-old grandmother from Ohio, who in the spring of 1955 told her children she was going for a walk. She didn't say how far, she didn't explain why. She simply kissed them goodbye, packed a small cloth bag, and boarded a bus to Georgia. Then she began walking north on the Appalachian Trail alone. She had read about the trail in a magazine, it sounded beautiful, achievable, peaceful, and somewhere inside of her a quiet thought formed. If others can do this, so can I. She had lived a life that required endurance long before she ever set foot on the trail, raising eleven children and surviving years of abuse before finally stepping away and creating a life of her own. By the time she began that first walk, she wasn't trying to prove anything to anyone else. She was reclaiming something that had always belonged to her freedom, strength, self-trust, and the quiet knowing that she could keep going. She had no backpacking equipment, she carried what she could, a blanket, a shower curtain, a few basic supplies tucked into a homemade bag slung over her shoulder. No tent, no sleeping bag, no hiking boots, no compass, just canvas sneakers and determination. The trail did not greet her gently, roots caught her feet, rocks cut through the thin soles of her shoes, rain turned the path to mud. She fell, she got lost, and at one point she twisted her ankle so badly she could barely stand, and still she kept going. When people passed her, they didn't quite know what to make of her. A small grey haired woman walking alone through the wilderness. Some thought she was lost, others thought she was a little crazy. She would smile and say she just wanted to see the country. In September of that year she stood on the summit of Mount Katotin in Maine, having walked more than 2,100 miles, and then she did it again and again into her 70s. Fast forward to April 2004, and I was 59, also a grandmother, and five years into a new career as a realtor. A fellow agent invited me to sponsor her in riding 500 miles down the California coast for the arthritis foundation. I had just learned about a friend being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and I found myself wanting to support whatever research could help. Some crazy notion nudged me. What if I did the ride myself? I would surely love to meet the woman who it who I would become by doing this, but still I had my doubts to overcome. I didn't even own a bike. I would need to raise $2,500 or come up with it myself. And there was that familiar voice suggesting I might just be too old. Until I learned there were riders in their seventies completing the journey. Well, there went that excuse. I love the William Murray quote until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. It was certainly true for me. Once I committed, everything fell into place. A friend from church not only offered me a bike, he offered to train me. I had six months to get ready. My life became a routine of waking up at six AM to meet him on the trail by seven, at least four or at least four mornings a week. I bought cycling pants with the cushioning pads, the clip-in shoes, the helmet with the rear view mirror. We rode bike trails from Sacramento to Auburn. We biked around lakes, up steep hills, and through areas where not once but twice I saw mountain lions. At first I was exhausted after just a couple of miles. Even the smallest hill felt like a mountain. But I kept showing up, eventually twenty miles became manageable, then twenty five. By the time we gathered in San Francisco in October with two hundred and fifty other riders, I was ready, or at least ready enough. I thought we would stay in groups, kind of like the Peloton riders, but I soon figured out I would be mostly riding on my own. It didn't take long for us to spread out, each of us found our own rhythm. Every now and then I would pass someone, but more often they waved as they passed me. I wasn't last into the camp each night, but I was way behind the leaders. Life got very basic very quickly. Ride, eat, rest, repeat. At the end of each day I would find a spot to set up my tent, locate my two bags, one with clothing, one with the tent, and begin the small rituals that became everything. Inflating the sleeping mat, finding clean clothes, walking to the portable showers where hot water felt like an absolute gift. Dinner, a much needed massage, and then into the tent for sleep before it all began again. The hills were the hardest. I made a quiet promise to myself that I would not walk my bike. There were moments I questioned that promise, but I held to it. I remember one stretch along Highway One, heading into Big Sur. The road was narrow, so narrow and no bike lane, with mountains rising on one side and the ocean dropping away on the other. I found myself calling on my angels for protection, and again and again, just when I needed it, a wide space would appear, enough room for a car to pass safely. I remember thinking I bet those drivers think we're crazy. I know I used to. There were other moments too, stringing up stringing up makeshift clothes lines to dry damp clothes, waking in a tent soaked inside and out from the ventura ocean air, pushing through fatigue day after day. And then the finish line in Santa Monica. When I crossed it I felt triumphant, not because I had ridden five hundred miles, but because I had met her, the woman I had wondered about, the one who didn't give up. Me. I rode again the following year, but it wasn't the same. I wasn't searching anymore, I had already found what I needed. I can imagine the conquest Emma Gatewood felt on september twenty fifth, nineteen fifty five, when she stood on the summit of that mountain in Maine. She had walked twenty one hundred and sixty eight miles in one hundred and forty six days. She was the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail alone in a single season. Grandma Gatewood kept walking, returning to the trail again and again, not to prove anything, because walking had become part of who she was. She didn't stop living her life between those journeys. She gardened, she spent time with her family, and then when the call came again she answered it, not to become someone new, but to return to someone she had come to know. And that makes me think about all of us. Sometimes we choose the challenge, knowing it will it will test us. Sometimes the challenge comes to us, unbidden, unwelcome, and still we are asked to decide who we will be in the face of it. The ones we choose may seem easier at first. We train for them, prepare, say yes on our own terms, but in the end, all challenges ask the same thing of us. They ask us to call upon something within ourselves that we may not yet fully know, but hope we'll discover. I have learned far more about who I am and what I'm capable of when life is not just merely rowing along merrily, merrily. Looking back, I can see that ride was more than an accomplishment. It was preparation for things I did not yet know I would face. And recently I found myself thinking about it again. My oldest son will turn fifty nine this May, the same age I was when I took that ride. We were talking about it and I realized something surprising. Neither he nor his brother really remembered that I had done it. So I sent him the photo of me crossing the finish line. He looked at it and said, Mom, you were hot. I laughed and then I paused because I remember that feeling, strong, capable, alive in my body and my life in a way that is hard to describe but impossible to forget. It's hard to believe that twenty one years have passed, and even now I find myself wondering who is the woman I will meet in the next ten or fifteen years? Who is she becoming? We cannot know what invitations and challenges life will bring us. I'm hoping I'll say yes when my invitation comes, whatever form it takes. And until next time, I hope you say yes when your invitation comes.