He believes his wife isn’t faithful to him. There have been others before him, too. But he loves her so much that through the years he has internalised his pain. That is, until now. Now

he has lost his will, his energy.

I go downstairs, still listening to my friend rehashing why his life is so bad. I walk into the driveway, and am now standing underneath the leaf. It doesn’t seem to be attached to anything. It is just there. Now obviously it must be caught in a spider’s web. But from where I stand, there isn’t even a glimmer of a web. As if stopped magically in mid-air, this leaf had halted its journey.

Perfect timing. “Bill, there’s a leaf hanging here in mid-air,” I say. “What?” “A leaf that was supposed to hit the ground has suddenly stopped and is just dangling there,” I tell him. “So?” “That’s your answer. “It had been through a lot, too. The storms that shook its branches, the lightning that struck down a nearby tree, the small insects that ripped apart so many other leaves, were devastating. But it survived.

“Then one day it started to go through some changes. Changes that life brings. It began to feel old and withered. Its beautiful colour started to fade and it began to lose its grip.

Then one day it fell earthward. It had given up all hope of holding onto the lifeblood that kept it fed, strong, and healthy.” But on the way an invisible thread caught it. As if to say, not yet, my friend. Not yet.” — Beliefnet.com