Hi Lowell,

What a wonderful story. I could just imagine it in living color. I like your moral, however, sometimes life places us in precarious places and forces us to make choices on the spot that we normally would have taken much more time to contemplate. Zima had friends to bail her out, or help her out of her problem and thus we frail humans also needs our close friends to help us along on our journey through life. God did not put us here to be alone, but to share with our companions along the way, our successes and our failures.

If Zima did not have friends to help her out of the tree, would she have fallen feet first and been alright anyway? Hard to know, but at least she did not have to make another difficult choice right at that moment. Instead, she accepted help when offered, though humbling I'm sure and chose to be kept safe, rather than be possibly injured.

In the human existence being up the creek without a paddle sometimes arrives. IE, battered women and their travails in life. Others may say, why don't you just leave or what have you, but the choice doesn't always arrive at the most fortuitous moment. Does one fear the unknown of life "out there" so much they cannot chose to be free, and thus return to the occasional fear of what is "inside." So often yes.

I am glad for Zima that she has such a good friend in you that life up a tree was just a good lesson learned and not one of a broken limb, just in encountering those funny little squirrels.

A marvelous Sunday.....Petra