Walking on hands

Charlie was a fine fellow who loved to play outdoors and fish and swim. He really enjoyed life. His only problem was that he had a deformed foot and couldn't run. Sometimes he even had trouble walking and tripped but he didn't let that bother him because he could do many things that he enjoyed.
Sometimes other kids at school would make fun of him but he tried to ignore it. A boy named Jerry once told him that his foot was so bad that he should walk on his hands instead. Everyone laughed at him. Even though he tried to laugh with them it really hurt.
He began to wonder if maybe he was born to walk on his hands. He tried walking on his hands a few times but it was hard. He tried more and he got better but he also got hurt a lot from falling and got cuts on his hands. Soon he started walking on his hands at school. People really started to look at him funny and laugh at him but he knew that is how he was born. When people laughed at him sometimes he would tell them that he was born that way and they should accept him as he is.
After a while he found other people that walked on their hands and he felt better and accepted when he was around others who were born to walk on their hands. If anyone laughed at them they would tell them that they were born that way and that they would have to deny who they are to walk on their feet. They were finally free and living the way that they were designed to live but the freedom had a few problems -- they still got hurt often.
Many had sores on their hands from the rough ground and bruises from falling. They often got nose bleeds from being upside down so often. Some people would tell them that they weren't born that way, that it was hurting them, and that they could walk on their feet if they tried but that made them feel rejected so they called them hand-walker haters. Once a hand walker name George did learn to walk on his feet again but they denied that because they knew that they were born to walk on their hands.
Charlie finally got acceptance by accepting that he was a hand-walker but he died just a few years later because of an accident where a nose bleed distracted him and he fell off of a balcony. Unfortunately many hand-walkers died similar deaths. Charlie got acceptance in hand-walking but it hurt him time and time again and finally killed him.
--James Stauffer
March 22, 2005