I’m very excited again this week to join a talented group of women bloggers in an online, unedited flash mob free write. This week, the word-prompt given to us by our fearless leader Kate Motaung (whose wonderful blog can be found at katemotaung.com) is “turn”. My timer is set for 5 minutes; ready, set, 

I took a tumble a little over 9 years ago. I thought it was a fall. I really did. And truthfully, it was a fall — of more than one kind. And I picked myself up as best I could and carried on. But then, almost 6 years ago, I took a real fall. One that made me realize what I had mistaken for a fall just a few years before was just a tumble really. You might even say I’d just tripped.

But back to the actual “fall” almost 6 years ago. I got up. I dusted myself off and carried on, one step at a time, for 5 1/2 years. Now, though, I’m ready to stop just “carrying on” and to actually rise. Move beyond just getting by.

Because some day, my son and daughter may also take a fall. Of course, I hope they never do, but life being what it is makes me know they almost surely will. And when they do, I want them to have learned by my example that a fall isn’t the end, that it may bruise and even bloody a person, but it doesn’t have to defeat them.

Instead, that a person can get up . . . rise up . . . and soar.