The Ducks Have Moved On

When I was about ten years old, Sunday afternoons had a fairly simple shape.

My dad would take my sister and me into the city. We would go to the library and borrow books. Not one book each either. We would come away like small packhorses carrying the printed hopes of the next week.

Then we would walk along the Torrens.

For anyone outside Adelaide, the Torrens is the river that ambles through the city with a kind of quiet self-importance. It is not the Amazon. It is not the Nile. Nobody is writing adventure novels about men vanishing up the Torrens and being discovered twenty years later wearing a grass skirt and ruling over ducks.

But to a child it was wonderful.

There was water. There were paths. There were trees. There were ducks who behaved as if they had a legal right to every crust of bread in South Australia. We fed them. We watched them waddle. We had an ice cream. Then we went home tired, happy and with a bag full of books waiting to be read.

It was not spectacular.

It was better than spectacular.

It was ordinary goodness.

Now of course, being older brings wisdom. It also brings knees that make noises previously heard only in haunted houses.

I sometimes think about doing that same Sunday walk again. A little library visit. A stroll by the river. Feed the ducks. Have an ice cream. Come home with a pile of books and a quiet heart.

Then reality taps me gently on the shoulder and says, "Steady on, old son."

First there is the reading.

When I was ten, I could read for hours. My eyes worked like a pair of well-trained sheepdogs. They rounded up every word on the page and brought it obediently into my head.

Now my eyes seem to have joined a union. They work when they feel like it. Small print is no longer writing. It is a grey smudge with ambitions. A book that once promised adventure now promises eye strain, a headache and a search for whichever pair of glasses I put down somewhere safe in 2017.

Then there is the walking.

As a child, walking along the Torrens was effortless. Children do not walk. They bounce. They run ahead. They dawdle. They ask questions. They drop things. They walk backwards for no reason. They can cover several kilometres while complaining only that they are bored, hungry or both.

Now the knees have opinions.

They do not like slopes. They distrust stairs. They regard uneven paving as a personal insult. They make little announcements when I stand up. Nothing dramatic. Just a few clicks and cracks to remind everyone nearby that a vintage model is being started.

Then there is the ice cream.

At ten, an ice cream was simply an ice cream.

It did not have consequences.

It was not part of a wider discussion about waistlines, cholesterol, sensible choices or whether trousers had "shrunk in the wash" again.

These days an ice cream does not go to the stomach.

It files a development application.

One scoop becomes a small extension. Two scoops become a granny flat. Add chocolate topping and suddenly there is scaffolding around the middle.

And even if I bravely decided to have one, there is every chance the vendor would no longer be there. Not because he ran out of ice cream. That would be understandable. No, he may have been closed down because he did not have a laminated safety policy, an HR manual, a duck interaction procedure, a gluten awareness matrix and a twelve-page emergency plan in case a child dropped a Paddle Pop stick within four metres of a council bin.

Then there is parking.

My father simply took us into town.

That was it.

We arrived. We parked. We went to the library.

Today, parking in the city can feel like purchasing a minor share in the building. You enter the car park as a free citizen and leave as a financial contributor to something roughly the size of a small nation's GDP. By the time you have paid, you do not need a library book. You need a financial counsellor.

And the ducks?

Well, I cannot speak for the ducks. Perhaps they are still there. Perhaps they have relocated. Perhaps the old ones told their grandchildren about a golden age when children arrived on Sundays bearing bread and hope.

Maybe they looked at modern life and said, "That's it. We're off."

A better wetland. Cleaner water. More considerate walkers. Fewer signs.

One imagines them somewhere peaceful, discussing the decline of manners and the quality of bread in the twenty-first century.

It is easy to laugh at all this. And we should. A little laughter is one of God's kindnesses. It keeps self-pity from getting too comfortable in the spare room.

But under the humour there is something tender.

Those Sunday afternoons were gifts.

At the time, I did not know they were gifts. Children rarely do. A child receives goodness like sunshine. It is simply there. Dad taking us to the library. My sister beside me. Books under our arms. The river. The ducks. The ice cream. The tired ride home.

No one announced, "This will become a treasured memory."

No one said, "Pay attention. One day your knees will complain and your eyes will fade and you will remember this with gratitude."

We simply lived it.

That is how many of God's mercies arrive.

Quietly.

Without fanfare.

A meal on the table. A hand holding ours across a road. A father making time. A sister walking beside us. A book waiting to be opened. A river catching the afternoon light. A small treat melting before we can eat it properly.

At the time, it feels ordinary.

Later, we realise ordinary was never empty.

It was full of grace.

The Bible often calls us to remember. Not because the past was perfect. It was not. Every age has its troubles. Every family has its sorrows. Every childhood has things we understand differently later.

But remembering rightly helps us see the hand of God in places we may have missed.

The Lord was not only present in the grand moments. He was there in the simple mercies too.

He was there in Sunday routines.

He was there in patient parents.

He was there in the joy of stories.

He was there in tired children carrying borrowed books.

He was there beside the river.

The danger as we age is that we can become experts in loss.

We know what has changed. We know what aches. We know what we can no longer do easily. We know the world has become more complicated. We know a simple outing now requires planning, payment, reading glasses, sensible shoes and possibly a small legal department.

But Christian gratitude does not deny what has changed.

It simply refuses to let loss have the final word.

Yes, the eyes may be weaker.

But I was given years of reading.

Yes, the knees may object.

But I was given many paths to walk.

Yes, ice cream now comes with consequences.

But I was given the sweetness of childhood Sundays.

Yes, the world feels heavier, more regulated and more expensive.

But God's kindness has not been shut down by council.

The Lord who gave grace then still gives grace now.

It may look different. It may come slower. It may arrive in quieter forms. A comfortable chair. A large-print book. A short walk instead of a long one. A cup of tea instead of an ice cream. A memory that warms the heart without adding anything to the waistline.

And perhaps that is one of the hidden gifts of growing older.

We begin to see that small things were never small.

They were seeds.

They were anchors.

They were little reminders that life is not only made of achievements, purchases, deadlines and worries. It is also made of kindness received, love given, moments shared and mercies remembered.

I may not be ten again. That ship has sailed down the Torrens and probably been charged mooring fees.

But I can still thank God for the boy who carried books beside the river.

I can thank God for my dad.

I can thank God for my sister.

I can thank God for ducks with unreasonable confidence.

I can thank God for Sundays that asked nothing more from us than to walk, read, laugh, eat and go home tired.

And I can ask Him to give me eyes to notice today's mercies before they become tomorrow's memories.

Because one day, even this ordinary day may shine.

One day we may look back and realise God was kind here too.

Not loudly.

Not dramatically.

Just faithfully.

Like a father taking his children to the library.

Like a river running quietly through the city.

Like grace beside the path.

Like ducks waiting for bread.