Up By the Roots

Being the youngest of the siblings, the decision was made for him not long after his parents died that he would be better off if he left his home.

Better off?!!! How can one be better off all alone, far away from everything he’s ever known, far away from the rock-carved-out-of-mountain shed he called his home?... Far away from the place where he last saw his dad resting in a hole dug in the dirt with the felt hat sleeping on his chest…

But, decision was made and it was final.

So, he pulled up his tender roots and went across seven hills and seven rivers and arrived to a place flat like a pancake, no mountains anywhere in sight.  What a strange land that was!  The mountains was all he ever knew and he’d assumed that the entire earth must be one mountain range after another.  If there was no Sun in the sky one couldn’t tell which way it was rising and which way it set.

And the boy begun to learn the east from the west in this new world to which his skinny legs have carried him.

He could have become bitter.

He could have become angry or resentful or hateful or suspicious of life and everything in it, people and places, traditions and customs.

He could have tried to escape his misery and loneliness and emptiness in any of the millions of ways people try to escape their misery and loneliness and emptiness.

He could have, and nobody who knew his story would fault him for it, because he had every excuse to do it.

But, for some mysterious, inexplicable reason, he didn't.