Don’t Forget to Get Back Up

My mother told me this story about a man she met when she was riding the bus home from work.

My mother was riding the bus home from work, and was sitting next to this man who appeared to also be coming home from work. The man seemed to be having a hard time, so my mom asked him how he was doing. Here was his reply:

I came home from work 2 days ago, and my 10 year old son was sitting on the front porch. I asked him why he did not go inside. The son replied the door was locked. You should have rung the doorbell the man said. When the man checked the door, the door was locked, and when he opened it no one was home.

There was a note on the mantle from his wife basically stating that she was done and she was leaving. The man told my mother that he didn’t have the best marriage but things weren’t that bad. Overall they were pretty decent.

So the man made arrangements for his mother to watch his son after school. So the boy went to his grandmother’s house after school the next day.

This time when the man and his son came home, the house was empty. There was no furniture, nothing. All the clothes had been removed from the dressers and put on the floor. Any other furniture was taken, even the furniture from the son’s room.

The man could not understand why his wife would take the sons dresser, bed and everything.

At this point my mother said she understood, and that being a single mother, she knew hard times too. She knew what it was like to get kicked, or to fall down.

As the man was leaving he turned and said to my mother, it is ok to fall down, it happens to all of us. You can even take a break and stay down to gather your energy back up. But don’t forget to get back up, and then he left.

That story has always left quite an impact on me. I think about it when I have run into hard times in my life.

You can stay down for a while to catch your breath, but don’t forget to get back up.

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