It was sign 9″ x 6″ sign gifted to me on what would have been his 45th birthday.  A sign stuck in the corner of a flower shop, waiting patiently to be purchased and laid in my hands. A sign purchased by someone who has helped me walk many a mile when I didn’t want to get out of bed.

I’ve had many days like this the past five years or so.  Maybe you have too.

Days when I couldn’t fathom putting my feet on the floor.  Days when brushing my teeth seemed like an enormous task. Days like when my four-year-old walked outside, looked up at the sky and yelled, “God!  Are you there? Hey God! God if you’re there will you please bring my daddy back?”  Days where walking really is ALL you can do.  That is, if someone walks next to you.  Holding you up and helping you see through the tears.

It’s one of the beauties of our human condition—our need to know someone is WITH us. That someone sees us.  That someone cares.

Maybe it’s lawn work, house work or mechanical work. Maybe it’s a visit, a casserole or a card. Or maybe  it’s a gift, a call or a text. Sometimes all we need to survive is a loving heart and hand lent down in our direction, letting us know we won’t go it alone.

Maybe you’re the one knee-deep in the trenches of major struggle or maybe you know someone who is.  Maybe you know what it is to lock war-torn arms with someone or maybe someone has locked arms with you.

In whatever season you find yourself now, maybe you can dig just a little bit deeper.  Maybe you can trudge just a little bit farther. And maybe, just maybe,  you can band together, locking arms with someone incapable of doing it alone.

You don’t have to be belong to the same political party.  You don’t have to sit on the same board.  You don’t have to attend the same church.  You don’t have to believe in the same God.  All that’s required is one raw act of human kindness, human togetherness and human compassion toward another.

Because after all, aren’t we all on the same journey—though our paths may look different? And aren’t we all headed to the same place—though our roads aren’t alike?  And since it seems we’re all just human beings, trying to get through this thing called life—aren’t we all just war-torn refugee’s trying to get to this thing called safety?

So right now, right here, we might as well halt our stance, link our arms and band our hearts. Because it stands to reason that the flower shop sign was right all along.

—We are all just walking each other home.