For all of you with little ones…

Daddy, me

An offering from Kahlil Gibran whose words ring true to this day…

Children

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, “Speak to us of
Children.”

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you
with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that
is stable.

— Kahlil Gibran

Let me know what you think? I find this poem beautiful. As I have grown older, I have come to appreciate the courage and trust that my parents have placed in me. Unconditional love, implicit trust, complete faith. No wonder I could never lie to them. How can you lie or deceive when you know that you can get anything you ask for? In the face of complete trust, it is impossible to deceive. Or so I believe. Most of all, I admire my parents’ sense of courage and judgment. It takes a lot of guts to let go of your child. Let her make her own mistakes, let her learn from them, let her go find her own better half, let her cry over lost friends. To always stay behind her, her pillars of strength and love, her strongest buffers against the world, her oldest friends whom she can never let go of.