On hot days during the summer, or when on vacation, most people tend to visit the beach. No matter what they do, even if they were to go straight into the water, its easy to notice the imprint their feet leave in the sand. Sand is like a block of cement that quickly gets fixed, the imprints don't stay there forever, no matter what anyone tries to do to save the footprint in the sand. The poem “Footprints in the Sand” by Mary Stevenson takes a religious tone, but its easy to make ‘god’ in the poem symbolize really anyone that is trustworthy in the readers life, like a family member. The poem shows how when someone is in a difficult situation in their life, it may seems like they’re all on their own. In reality the person they trust the most is helping to the best of their ability.
From the first stanza its easy to tell that the poem is trying to bring in the fact that sometimes people will be by your side and other times you'll be on your own. Many people are promised by their faiths or family members that they will always be by their side. Its easy to notice them when they’re going through fun times. As soon as they fall into tough times, they’re focused on themselves, not the people around them. Its hard to see that their are actually people around them trying to help. After those hard times, people are able to look back on it and they think they got through it all by themselves, but really they were probably helped a lot, and they didn't even notice.
At first I had read the poem and I had thought it would be about how when you aren’t in need people flock to you, they want to be around you and have just as much of a good time as you. When hardships strike, they run away from you, they don’t want to be a part of all that, they probably have their own problems. I figured the poem would end with something along the lines of sometimes you have to help yourself. I believe the ending truly shocked me. I wasn’t expecting that type of ending and it made me understand. I realized that its true, there really is someone usually there for me, there is no way I would be able to get out of some of my saddest times without the help of someone.
To survive in this world, I’ve been told that you need to have faith, whether you believe that or not, its all up to you, but there have been many times in my life that I was repaid for keeping positive thoughts. Its hard to see when you’re hurting that you weren’t always hurting, but you have been hurt before. I’ve always thought of life like a rollercoaster with a lot of inclines and drops. The inclines are the fun times, like I said before when everyones around you and you’re having a great time, and you’re caught off guard by the big drop. The big drop being sorrow, loss, anger, etc. You can’t drop forever, there will be at one point another incline, though it may be as small as some stranger complimenting you on the streets, or as big as winning the lottery. Those people or things are all carrying you back up, as if now you’re going up a hill and you’re so spent that you need someone to help you back up.
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