I didn’t plan on writing anything for National Tell a Story Day. Honestly, I didn’t even know it was National Tell a Story Day until I saw it looping across the screens at Heritage High School this morning — the same school where I completed my student teaching, and where I happened to be subbing again today. There’s something grounding about being back in a place where you once learned how to find your footing.

All day, that little announcement kept replaying in my mind: Tell a Story Day. Not loudly — more like a quiet tap on the shoulder. And sometimes that’s all it takes to make you pay attention to the stories you’ve been carrying around without realizing it.

Maybe that’s why, later this evening, my thoughts drifted to a place that has held more stories than most buildings or books ever could: the Walnut Street Bridge in Chattanooga.

If you’ve lived in this area long enough, you’ve walked that bridge. You’ve watched the river move slow and steady beneath it. You’ve felt the boards flex under your feet. You’ve stood in the middle and looked out at the city — a place with a complicated past and a hopeful heartbeat.

It’s been closed for over a year now for extensive renovations. Within the past few weeks, I saw updates from the Chattanooga Public Works Facebook page and the Chattanooga Parks and Outdoors page saying everything is still on schedule for a September 2026 reopening. It’s strange how you can miss something you never really thought about — until you can’t have it anymore.

I’m grateful Julie and I crossed it one last time before it closed. It was March of last year, and she was still in 5th grade. We were in Chattanooga for a field trip, and we walked the bridge together — not knowing it would be our final crossing for a while. I remember the breeze, the laughter of kids echoing across the planks, and Julie leaning over the rail to watch the water. Just a simple moment, but one that stuck.

Tonight, I imagined a story taking place there — not the bridge as it is now, fenced off and under construction, but the bridge as it used to be: open, blue, humming with footsteps and conversations.

And in this story, two strangers meet at dusk.

One stands at the north end, wearing a shirt that makes his political leanings clear. The other stands at the south end, holding a sign from a peaceful protest earlier that day. They don’t know each other. They don’t trust each other. They’ve been told — by headlines, by algorithms, by the loudest voices in the room — that they are enemies.

They start walking toward the center of the bridge at the same time.

Neither plans to stop.

But when they reach the middle, something unexpected happens: they both pause. Not out of fear, but out of exhaustion. Out of the simple human truth that division is heavy, and both of them are tired of carrying it.

The man with the sign speaks first.

“Long day,” he says.

The other nods. “Yeah.”

They stand there in the fading light, the river below them catching the last streaks of orange and gold. For a moment, they don’t talk about politics or protests or who’s right or wrong. They talk about their kids. Their jobs. The price of groceries. The weather. The things that remind them they’re human before they’re anything else.

And then the man with the sign says something he’s been afraid to say out loud: “Just because I protest doesn’t mean I hate America.”

The other man looks at him — really looks at him — and replies, “I know. I think most people know. We just forget.”

The wind moves across the bridge, soft and cool.

They talk a little longer. Not to change each other’s minds, but to understand each other’s hearts. And when they finally part ways, they don’t walk away as friends, exactly — but they walk away lighter. They walk away knowing the other is not the sworn enemy they were told to fear.

As they leave, the bridge glows in the last bit of daylight, and it feels like a reminder: This city has seen division before. Real division. Painful division. The kind that left scars on families and communities — including the lynching that happened near one end of this very bridge generations ago. A tragedy that still echoes.

But the bridge still stands.

Not because the past was easy, but because people kept crossing it anyway.

Maybe that’s the story worth telling today.

That even in a divided time, two strangers can meet in the middle — not to agree, but to see each other. To listen. To remember that disagreement doesn’t make us enemies. That loving your country doesn’t look the same for everyone. That kindness is still possible, even when the world feels loud.

And maybe, when the Walnut Street Bridge finally reopens, we’ll walk across it with a little more intention — remembering that bridges aren’t just built to get us from one side to the other.

They’re built so we can meet in the middle.

_{Julie posing for a picture on the Walnut Street Bridge on March 10, 2025. This
was exactly one week before it would close (the bridge) for the extensive
renovations. The Hunter Museum of American Art is pictured in the background.}