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 son’s and daughter’s 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 the bow that is stable.
-Kahlil Gibran
This poem is fitting for today considering I dropped my son off at his first day of kindergarten and feel how quickly he is growing up.
My whole family was there to see him off. He showed me he was more than ready for school when he threw his covers off at 6am to immediately start dressing.
The tears hit me when I saw his younger brother say, without being coached, “I love you brother…” upon saying goodbye.
I had a moment on Sunday during lunch when I got choked up wanting to tell my son how happy I was that I’ve had the privilege to be with him since the day he was born. I couldn’t finish my sentence because the tears came.
He stared at his emotional mother, almost pleased to see how loved and special he is, and then he responded, “I gotta use it!” swiftly running to the bathroom. I started laughing at the complete nonchalant way he handled my teary eyes.
Such are the convivial moments between a mother and her firstborn son.
[credit to my new discovery www.jadebeall.com for sharing this poem with me.]
