Hide and Seek

Funny, I always thought it was a game. You know, hide and seek. Small children listening to the numbers being shouted from home base ONE, TWO, THREE while fanatically trying their best to find that perfect place to hide from their would be captor. A place strategically position so that as soon as the seeker is not looking or is far enough away they can race back to home, in free! as they say as if being found, being "it" was such a bad thing. And then there are those whose strategy is to hide so well that they cannot be found. To hear the words "all in free!" would be their goal. And of course, as life goes on children grow up and move on forgetting about the beloved game of their youth. But, I wonder did anyone ever hide so far away that they were lost? forgetting where home base was and having to cry out for help to find their way back to the comfort of familiar surroundings? I'm older now but in the course of the last fifteen years or so I have encountered a different type of hide and seek, though it is no game, more like a tragedy. You see I have friends that in the game of life have been enticed down a path of drug use and are now lost. Hidden so deeply and dangerously inside themselves that they cannot be found. I see them floundering around in a desperate attempt to make their way back to that comfortable place of familiar surroundings..."HOME". Unlike the childhood game where eventually the child would be found by a scouring effort of family and friends, in this "game" everyone has given up... No one wants to be "it". I can think of no more a horrific end then to be forever lost inside an empty shell of a human being, never to find your way back to what was once a wonderful opportunity to live. Are these bad people or just people??? People who desperately need someone to be "it". If you know someone in this position and you can find a way without putting yourself in to much danger,,, be a seeker. Better yet, be a finder of the lost hiders that they might not be lost FOR EVER!