The Journey Home

There once was a young girl named Jane. She lived in an orphanage in the woods, near a great mountain. She'd been there ever since she could remember, but they'd always told her that when she got old enough, she could begin the journey home.

"Where did I come from?"

"You came from the mountain."

And that was all they told her. She decided when it was time to journey home, she would head toward the mountain. The forest looked dark and scary though.

Finally her birthday came and it was time to go. She said goodbye to her friends at the orphanage and began her journey. At the edge of the field, where they used to play as children, there was a path leading into the woods. That's where she began with her little bag of belongings.

She stood for a long time staring into the woods. The path was long and rocky. It looked dangerous. But if she wanted to get home, she would have to go down it.

Finally she took her first step. The moment she did, a man appeared behind her. She hadn't even seen him approach. He sort of startled her.

"You going to the mountain?"

"Yes. My name is Jane. I live there. I have to go home."

"I can take you," the man said, "If you want me to. I know the way."

She looked at him for a moment, trying to decide if she should trust him. She didn't have any other option though, so she nodded at him and they started walking.

"Tell me about your mother and dad," the man said after a few minutes of silent walking.

"I hate them. They abandoned me in that orphanage. If I ever see them again, I'd like to punch them both in the face."

The man stopped. He picked up two rocks and gave them to her. They were fairly big rocks too. They filled her entire palms.

"What are these?" she asked him.

"You have to carry them. They represent your parents."

She looked at him like he was crazy, but the look in his eyes told her he was not joking. So she put the rocks into her backpack and they continued down the trail.

A while later she tripped over a tree root and fell to cursing and muttering to herself. "Stupid, ugly, twisted old tree!"

When she looked up the man was holding another rock out to her. "That's for the tree."

She took it and put it into her backpack. At least it was only three. She could handle three.

But as they walked she began talking about her life. She was bored with the long journey, and wanted to pass the time chatting. She talked about her childhood in the orphanage. She talked about her friends. She talked about the mean old ladies who made them do their chores and get to bed on time, never letting them have any fun. And each time she complained she was handed another rock. Soon she had twelve of them and the pack was getting quite heavy.

"Why do I have to carry all these stupid rocks for anyway?" she said after a while. "This is just making the journey harder. If I could just bring my clothes and the food, we'd get there in no time."

The man just looked at her and asked, "Are you complaining about the rocks now too?"

She quickly shook her head no, but he handed her a new rock anyway.

By the end of the first day, she was exhausted. She slept, oddly enough, like a rock all that night.

They woke up in the morning and had breakfast. She complained about sleeping outdoors on the cold hard ground. She complained about the lousy food. She complained about not being able to take a good bath.

"I thought you hated taking baths," the man said. "You were complaining yesterday about how the women at the orphanage forced you to take baths every day."

"Well now that I'm all tired out in the woods, I'm wishing for one."

The man handed her some new rocks, one for the cold hard ground, one for the lousy breakfast, and one for the lack of a bath.

"You mean I have to carry more stupid rocks!?"

"Yes, you do. One for everything you think is wrong with your life."

"But my life is terrible! At this rate, I won't even make it to the mountain. The journey will kill me. I have a bad leg, and my back is itchy, and my hair is all over the place and I can barely see where I'm going! I hate this!"

"Are you finished?" the man asked her after a few moments.

"No! I'm sore! And I'm tired! And I think I'm getting sick! And these damn bugs are driving me crazy!!!"

"Are you finished now?"

"Yes! I'm finished now!"

"Well then, here's a rock for your bad leg, one for your itchy back, one for your messy hair, one for your sore feet, one for being tired and one for being sick. And here's a few small ones for all the bugs."

The girl sat down and started crying. "I don't want to carry all these rocks. I'm sorry."

The man said nothing. They sat for a long time quietly while she wept and felt sorry for herself.

"I should have stayed at the orphanage. At least those ladies were only doing what they thought was best for us. At least I had a bed to sleep in and could take a bath. And the food there was great compared to this."

Again the man sat quietly, listening to her talk. Finally she had nothing more to say.

"Do you have the rock I gave you when you complained about the orphanage ladies?"

"Of course I do!" she said, sneering resentfully.

"Show me."

She knew exactly which one it was. It was one of the bigger ones. She fished it out and held it in her hand.

"Let it go."

She looked at the rock for a long time, realizing she actually missed the orphanage she had hated for so long. She remembered all the things she'd learned there and all the happy times. Finally she turned her hand slightly and the rock rolled off, hitting the ground with a thud.

"Shall we continue?"

They got up and continued. The rocks felt heavier, especially with the new ones, but somehow they were a little less tiring. They walked all day in silence. By the end of the day, she was aching, sore, tired, itchy, sweaty, and miserable. But she kept quiet. She didn't want to have to carry any more stupid rocks.

They got up the next morning, ate a lousy breakfast and got ready to continue on. But before they did, the man handed her a new pile of rocks to carry.

"What!? What's this!?"

"Well these are for being aching, sore, tired, itchy, sweaty, and miserable yesterday. This is for the awful rest you had last night on the cold hard ground. This is for the lousy breakfast. And this is for not having a decent bath again."

"But I didn't complain about any of that stuff!"

"Yes you did."

She took them and put them in her pack, crying again.

"Why are you being so mean to me? Why are you making everything so much harder!?"

"I'm not being mean to you. I'm helping you. And I'm not making things harder for you. I'm making them easier for you."

"You're a liar. I hate you!"

"Shall we continue?" the man said, without reacting to her bitter comments.

"No! Just leave me alone! I'll find my own way!"

"You'll be hopelessly lost, girl."

"I don't care. At least I won't have to carry around a bunch of stupid rocks."

So the man walked away. The girl was all alone. She dumped out all her rocks and sat on the pile. "What now?" She muttered to herself. She was in a clearing and there were at least four different directions to go in. She didn't even know which way was the path back to the orphanage. So she sat there all day and did nothing. The night fell and she went to sleep in her sleeping bag, all alone. She'd made no progress at all that day, but at least she'd got some rest.

She rested all the next day too, feeling better and better with each hour. She was no closer to home, or to the orphanage, but at least she wasn't tired and sore.

Finally after the third day of rest, she had been resting longer than she'd even journeyed. She was getting bored out of her mind. She decided she'd better just continue toward home, now that she was rested up. But she didn't know which path to take.

She stood for the longest time staring down the trails. If she chose the wrong one, the journey would just take longer, making her more tired, and that would be worse than carrying a bunch of stupid rocks.

"Hello!?" she cried out, wondering if anybody else could show her the way.

"You called?" a voice said from behind her. It was the same man again.

"I wasn't calling you!"

"But I'm the only one who knows the way."

"I don't believe you."

"Well there are lots of people who could lead you to a lot of different places, but none of them would be your home. I'm the only one who knows the way to your home."

"But I have to carry a bunch of stupid rocks."

"Yes, whichever ones you choose to."

"But I haven't chosen any of these! You made me carry them!"

"I didn't make you carry anything. You took them on each time you complained."

"But you made me carry rocks even when I didn't complain, and they were even bigger ones!"

"The complaints of the heart are even worse than the ones you say out loud."

"Fine! Whatever! Can we just go!? Here! I'll pick up the biggest rock in the field and carry it along! This one is my complaint about YOU!"

"Now you're getting the idea," the man said calmly.

So she gathered all her rocks back into her pack, picked up the big two-handed stone and went trudging along behind the man on the path, feeling bitter, spiteful, and angry. Having rested for so long, she was now no longer used to the weight of the stones. The burden felt brand new again, and oh so heavy. She walked along crying.

They journed for three more days. Things slowly got easier. Not much easier, but at least it wasn't torture anymore. More rocks were added, though she never said a word all day over the three days. After three days she began correcting herself in her heart, every time she complained. Every complaint she made, she tried to see the bright side of the situation. The rocks were still added, but they were only half as big.

On the fourth day, they came across a young man lying on the side of the trail. He wasn't dead, but he was just lying there, crying. His bag of rocks was huge. He'd carried them this whole way and finally had fallen down, crushed by the weight of his own burdens.

"We have to help him!" Jane said.

"How exactly?" the man asked.

"I'll pick him up. I'll carry some of his rocks. I'm strong. I can do it."

"They're not your rocks to carry though. Even if you carried them in your pack, he would still feel the weight of them."

"We can't just leave him here!"

"If you want to help him, teach him to look on the bright side of things, to let go of his resentments and bitterness. Teach him to never give up, no matter what."

"How do I teach him that? I don't even know if I can do it myself."

"You've made it this far. You must know a few things."

So Jane stooped down beside him. She picked up one of his rocks and showed it to him. "Tell me about this rock? Why are you carrying it?"

"I hate my mother."

"How can you possibly hate your mother? You wouldn't even be alive if it weren't for her."

"I don't want to be alive. I hate life."

"Well, what about this rock?"

"I hate my father too."

Another big one. She put that one back in the pack and took another one a smaller one. "This?"

"I hate the damn crows. Caw! Caw! Caw! All day long. They drive me batty."

"But you can't do anything about it, even if you wanted to. Why carry around the irritation like this?"

"How do I let it go?"

"Just accept the crows as they are, neither good or bad. Just there."

"But their cawing will get to me eventually. I can't stand it."

"With all these other rocks to carry, you're really so upset about a cawing crow?"

"I never thought of it that way. It seems kind of petty by comparison."

"So can you just accept the crows as they are, neither good or bad?"

"Compared to my other problems, the crows don't even exist."

And he dropped the pebble. He didn't feel any lighter of course. It was just a pebble, but the two of them spent all day talking about his rocks until he'd dropped a good twenty stones. They were all small ones he'd dropped but they made a pretty good pile.

They went to sleep that night and the next day, she helped him up and they journeyed on together. They didn't talk much, and more stones were added here and there, but they made it pretty far.

Halfway through the day however, the young man collapsed again.

"Come on. Get up! You can do it!"

"I can't! I hate this journey! I hate everything! I give up!"

"Don't give up! Just let go of these stones! You can make it if you let them go! You're stronger than I am!"

But nothing she said would convince him. She tried everything, but he would not listen to her. He just laid there. Then after a while, she realized he was no longer breathing. His eyes were dead and cold. His mouth hung open in a grimace of pain. The rocks had crushed him as he lay there on the ground.

“You killed him! You and your damn rocks!”

“He did it to himself. You did everything you could, but he still wouldn’t let them go. He was proud and stubborn and bitter. He just gave up. Will you carry a stone for him now, mad at yourself? Mad at the journey? Mad at me?”

“Well I suppose I have to, don’t I?”

“No. Of course not. You can if you want to though.”

“I’ll carry a stone for him, just to remember him by. I’m proud and stubborn and bitter too, except that I’m never gonna give up. Ever!”

“As you say.”

So they continued on. The burdens were heavier now. She was tired. The rest stops were longer and it was harder to keep going when the breaks were over, but she knew if she rested too long, it would just get worse.

As the weeks went on, she found herself losing more and more stones. When she stopped to consider the stones each morning she realized that the things that had seemed so important long ago didn’t even matter anymore. The itchiness, the aches, the bugs—big deal. Why stress about that stuff when there were real problems in this journey? She dropped more and more stones until the only ones left were the major ones. She was upset about those ones and probably always would be. How could she ever let go of the wrongs done to her, the evil, the abuse? They were part of who she was it seemed, so she just accepted them.

She passed many people along the way, some had heavy burdens, some had only a few small rocks and pranced along the path like a child in the playground. Some even had small carts and wagons to carry their stones in so it was hardly a struggle for them at all, no matter how many stones they’d taken on.

“That’s not fair! How come they get to use carts and wagons, and the rest of us have to carry our burdens!?”

The man just shook his head, staring at one man’s wagon. “You don’t want one of those. You’re much better off.”

“I beg to differ.”

“He had money. He bought the wagon. You can too, if you wish.”

“I don’t have money. I can barely afford a decent back pack.”

“This woman over here convinced her father to carry her burdens along the way, and this beautiful woman used her charms to trick a man into carrying her load of stones.”

“I thought you said nobody can carry each other’s stones for them! The young man back there on the trail... you said I couldn’t...”

“I never said you couldn’t. I said it wouldn’t help him.”

“I don’t understand any of this. It just seems so cruel and unfair.”

“We’re not home yet,” the man replied.

And so they continued on. The road got rougher, but the burdens got lighter and lighter. Jane saw more and more people who had given up. She also saw some who had been carrying their burdens on wagons that had now broken down on them. The people stood crying angry tears, trying to gather up the massive amounts of stones they’d piled onto the wagons, but unable to carry them all, they could not continue on their journey.

“You gotta let go of some of those stones,” Jane called out to them. “It’s the only way you’ll make it home.”

“Shut up! I don’t need your help!”

Jane continued on. They did not.

The going got rougher still. The mountain was now looming ahead. The trail was steep and rocks were everywhere. There were also dozens more who had died along the way. Others were sitting next to those who had died, crying, refusing to go on without them. Others had broken down wagons. And still others were fighting with one another about who was to carry all the stones the rest of the way. One beautiful woman was all alone with a great pile of rocks she’d gotten a partner to carry for her. Her partner had given up on her and her burdens and had gone on without her. She was trying to wile passing men into helping her, but the journey was now too obviously difficult to go on with all her burdens.

Eventually there were no more wagons or carts at all. The trail had narrowed. The trail was rocky. Wagons and carts were impossible.

“Who will help me carry all these burdens? I’ll pay you! I’ll give you everything I own!” one man cried out.

“Sorry buddy, I got my own burdens to worry about. I don’t need your money anyway. I’m almost home,” a passer-by told him.

Jane wanted to help them all, but she knew she couldn’t. “Just let go of your burdens,” she told them as she passed. “Just let go of all of them until the pile is small enough to carry on your own.”

Some listened to her, and began taking stock of their loads. Others ignored her. Others shouted obscenities at her. There was a time when she would have gotten mad about such scathing rebukes, but she knew now that their words were meaningless. She would pick up no new stones resenting hollow insults from frustrated travellers.

“Please! Will you help me carry these up the mountain? I’m begging you!” one defeated looking lady said to her. “I can’t go on any more.”

“I could carry them, but that wouldn’t help you,” Jane told her. “You’ve just got to let them go. Just let them go.”

“But the cruel trail guide forces me to carry them. He gives me more and more each time I let old ones go. It’s so unfair.”

“Just do your best,” Jane said. “Come on, let a few more go.”

And so Jane continued. The road was steep, but the stones she’d carried along the way, had made her strong. She kept going, remembering every struggle she’d had, every trial, every misfortune along the way that had caused her to take on another stone. The struggles had made her stronger, and now she was nearly home.

At last she came to the foot of a great cliff. Here there was a whole city of people gathered around with their burdens of stones, some in back packs, some in bags, some in baskets. Some had found partners or friends to carry their stones all the way to the end. There were just a whole lot of people standing around, and Jane wondered if this was the end of the journey.

“This isn’t the end,” the man told her. “Home is up there, on top of the mountain.”

“So why don’t these people climb it?”

“You can’t make the climb until you’ve let go of every single last stone. The last climb is the hardest of all, and without letting go of every single last burden, nobody can make it.”

Jane felt the weight of her stones. They felt heavier now. She made her way to the base of the cliff, pushing through the city of people all weeping and fighting over their stones. She made it through and stood at the bottom of the cliff. Suddenly she understood. The cliff went straight up into the sky. There were handholds. There were footholds, but nothing to catch you if you slipped and fell. Some started to climb it with the last of their burdens in a back pack, but they quickly tired and had to climb back down. Still others had let go of all their burdens but were still tiring from the climb because they hadn’t had enough burdens along the way to strengthen them. Some however, were making the last climb, distant dots struggling up the cliff high in the sky.

“I’ll never make it,” Jane said.

“Not with these,” the man told her. “It’s time to decide if the resentments you hold are worth keeping you down here forever.”

“Of course not,” Jane replied. “I’ve made it this far, why would I quit now?”

“As you say,” he told her. “Let them all go then. Every single one of them.”

And so she did. It took her a few days, but she managed to go through each one and let them go. She said goodbye to her resentments, her bitterness, her ingratitude, everything in her life that she’d thought was a problem, everything in her life she had thought was holding her back, all the things she’d thought were so important along the way were falling to the ground in piles, one by one. The most important thing of all was the last climb into the sky. She realized that now.

“Goodbye, mom. Thank you for giving me life. Thank you for taking care of me, even when I was difficult. Goodbye, dad. Thank you for loving me, thank you for teaching me to be strong, and stubborn, and proud. Goodbye, sister. Thank you for fighting with me. Thank you for telling me how it is, instead of how I think it should be. Goodbye, brother. Thank you for shoving me in the dirt when I was little, teaching me not to get too big for my britches.”

And she tossed them all away until the only one stone remained, the one she’d picked up for the man who’d guided her the whole way. That one was the easiest of all to let go of.

“Thank you, kind sir, for making me pick up all these heavy stones along the way. I never would have made it this far without your help. I’d have been hopelessly lost along the way. I’d thought you were just punishing me, I’d thought you were just trying to make things harder, but truly you were simply preparing me for the end. You cared about me, and you knew the entire journey. Thank you, most of all.”

And so she let that last stone go. She was strong. She was completely free of all burdens. She walked up to the bottom of the cliff and began her last climb. It took all day. She nearly fell so many times, but her strength held true. Her muscles never tired. Her hands never wavered. She looked down at the city of folk she’d left behind. They seemed so far away now, them and their problems. She also saw the trail that had led up to the cliff, with all the broken down carts and weeping people, all the users, manipulators, and abusers who would never make it in the end. In the very far distance she saw the orphanage, and she saw a few new children starting out on their journey the same way she had, she saw them complaining, she saw them picking up stones, and she wished she could tell them to be grateful for each and every burden they were given.

She turned back and finished her climb.

At the top she met the man who had guided her the whole way, only this time he wasn’t dressed in plain peasant’s clothes. He was dressed like a king, in shining robes. She climbed over the edge of the cliff and stood up.

“You made it!” he said.

“How did you get up here?” she asked him.

“I live here,” he said.

“Then who was that down there, guiding me?”

“It was me. Strange, don’t you think?”

“Very strange.”

“Here. This is for you.”

He gave her a beautiful flowing robe, just like the one he wore. It was soft and shining as a cloud. She took off her peasant’s clothing and put the robe on.

“Welcome home, princess Jane,” the man said to her. He gave her a long hug and she realized he was her father. Then she hugged him even harder. They walked into the city on the mountain top and lived happily ever after.