Let me talk about the earth for a minute.
The earth is this big, solid, dependable mass. You can stand on it. You can walk on it. You can jump up and down on it until your stomach has been jostled one time too many. You can even fall down. The ground will catch you, and you won’t keep falling endlessly. You can always count on it to be there.
Infants know instinctively that the ground is their friend. Falling is one of only two things they’re afraid of instinctively. (The other is loud noises.)
The ground is so reassuring, its presence so constant and comforting that it’s impossible to imagine a world without it. Even Larry Niven, when he imagined people living in a free-fall environment he called the Smoke Ring, still included surfaces that they could walk on.
You know what else is like the ground? Mom.
Mom is there from the day we’re born, and even earlier if you disbelieve the stork and accept the so-called pregnancy theory. She supports you. She carries you. She’s always there to catch you when you fall. When no one else believes in you, not even yourself, mom is still there, cheering you on, rooting for you, ready ro let you cry if you need it, and offering cookies that she made just for you, just because.
It’s impossible to imagine a world without her.
And then one day, the phone rings at a quarter to five in the morning, and the voice on the other end tells you she’s gone. And where are you then?
You go on. She raised you to keep going, and you’ve found other supports over the course of your life. But every now and then it hits you.
The earth is gone, and you’re falling endlessly through space.
Copyright © 2022 by David Learn. Used with permission.
The Most Useless Blog in the World 
Oh… Yes. I felt like that when she died. I was orphaned.