Falling, 2009

 As children we fall.  We fall down.  Our legs are unsteady.  We are not sure that we can stand up, so we fall down.  We don't trust our legs, or we don't know that we can stand up.
 Eventually, we figure it out.  We can use our feet to balance our wobbly bodies, and then we stand.  However, we continue to fall, but it is usually our choosing.  We play football, and we fall down, but we get back up, unless we get hurt.  We play baseball, and we fall down to avoid being tagged out.  We also might fall down to hide from a disaster, such as a shooting or some other man-made calamity.
 When I was a kid, my parents gave me some unique experiences.  They loved to travel, so we got to picnic in the Smokey Mountains by ice-cold streams with bears in sight.  We got to be in Biloxi MS, when a hurricane arrived flooding the lobby of our hotel.  We got to go to Dodge City KS and Colorado Springs CO.  We went to the Air Force Academy and Santa FE NM.  We toured the Grand Canyon and Disneyland.  We went to Washington DC and the New York World's Fair.  There were other places, too, but that's just my first 10 years.  My parents didn't have a lot of money, but they provided for my brother and me.
 Even after we were on our own, my brother and I would get words of encouragement from Mother and Daddy.  The last thing my father said to me before he slipped into a coma was, "We love you, and are proud of you."  I didn't deserve it, but it was unconditional.  As my Mother go to the point where she couldn't speak, she would just squeeze my hand to show her love for me.  Sometimes, she would just about cut off the circulation, but I felt her love as an electric current from her to me.
 In the past few weeks, I have fallen once again.  I have felt alone, because no one has come to pick me up.  They just walk around me.  Some will ask how I am doing lying on the ground, but when I tell them I'm okay, they say good and walk way without picking me up.  Quite frankly, some of what has been said to me has hurt me deeply.  I haven't wanted to show it for fear that people will think less of me, but it has caused my emotions to be very fragile.  So, please help me stand up once again.  Let me lean on you for support.  And maybe I can once again stand on my own two feet.