Free­dom in Let­ting Go

I remem­ber one day when I was per­haps 7 years old. I had climbed up a tree and could not get down. I man­aged to maneu­ver myself part­way down but in the end I found myself hang­ing from my hands still quite a way up. I had no strength to get pur­chase for my feet and my arms were shak­ing from the strain. I finally decided that I would need to fall and I released my grip of the branch I was hang­ing from.

I will for­ever remem­ber the sense of free­dom and let­ting go as I felt the branch slip­ping from my grip; I had made the deci­sion to let go, and even though I hit the ground and cracked my tail­bone, I still only remem­ber the immense sense of free­dom for the heart­beat that I was falling.

I had let go and there was noth­ing else for me to do. There was no sense in wor­ry­ing what would hap­pen because it would hap­pen no mat­ter what I thought. There have been very few times in my life when I have felt so free.

From deep inside you I feel the crav­ing for the same sense of free­dom; where wor­ries promise to be van­quished, where pur­poses and goals are empty words; where your soul, like a leaf in the storm, whirls towards sal­va­tion at the end of the tunnel.

Let me cra­dle that leaf in my hands. Let me gen­tly blow on it and laugh in delight as it whirls around my head. Let me be strong enough, vig­i­lant enough, depend­able enough, to keep it safe.

Yes, I remem­ber the sense of free­dom I glimpsed when I was a young boy.

I remem­ber.

And still…

And still, I choose to stand tall in the storm, brav­ing thun­der­ous light­ning and sleet­ing snow. I choose to take your hand in mine and keep you warm.

Because every time you smile at me I glimpse that very free­dom in your eyes.