St Mary's Stairs

St Mary's Stairs
Originally uploaded by mike52ad

It is hard to believe that I have been around 56 years and next month I begin my 57th year. I've seen alot in my life, it has been a long hard climb. My life has been filled with disappointments. Let me share just a couple. My best friend when I was growing up pushed me into a pond in the middle of winter, I went under the ice. I could have been killed. He thought it was great fun. After high school another person I trusted and called a friend, someone who I got a job for and hung out with tried to stick me with his car payments. There were other disappointments, harsh set backs that I cannot even begin to explain how they happened. Still I climbed the stairs, putting one foot in front of the other. I could not see the end of the journey then and I really cannot see it now. All through it I was called upon to be strong. I grit my teeth and kept moving. I did not let anyone see the hurts and scars that filled my soul. Last year I experienced being laid off from a company where I worked hard and was turning my team into a great team. But hard my hard work and my loyalty meant nothing. I was shown the door. One of the people, a supposed friend. showed her true colors. She owed me some money and now of course, she returns no emails to me. My wife was hurt deeply by the lay off. She does not smile or laugh as much as before and she carries around with her the seeds of depression that I am afraid may take root and flourish. I have to be strong, for her. But I confess, I am tired to the bones of being strong. For once I would like someone to be strong for me, to tell me things will be okay, even if they have no idea how to turn that sentence into reality. I guess that this will not happen. I will need to be strong. Harken to the words of Jacob Goodpasture of Spoon River

"WHEN Fort Sumter fell and the war came
I cried out in bitterness of soul:
“O glorious republic now no more!”
When they buried my soldier son
To the call of trumpets and the sound of drums
My heart broke beneath the weight
Of eighty years, and I cried:
“Oh, son who died in a cause unjust!
In the strife of Freedom slain!”
And I crept here under the grass.
And now from the battlements of time, behold:
Thrice thirty million souls being bound together
In the love of larger truth,
Rapt in the expectation of the birth
Of a new Beauty,
Sprung from Brotherhood and Wisdom.
I with eyes of spirit see the Transfiguration
Before you see it.
But ye infinite brood of golden eagles nesting ever higher,
Wheeling ever higher, the sun-light wooing
Of lofty places of Thought,
Forgive the blindness of the departed owl. "

Jacob, I understand now why you crept under the grass, you were tired, life's problems and disappointments piled up and up. I ask what you ask to all who read this; Forgive the blindness of the departed owl.

I am not despondent just tired.