On Children
On Saturday my son flies back to Washington, where he has resided with his dad for the last 2 years, and I am already sad.
Even though it ripped my heart out to let him go live with his dad, it has turned out to be a very good thing. He is maturing, and growing into the amazing young man I always knew he had the potential to be. He just had to get past the anger.
Knowing he is where he needs to be doesn’t make it any easier to let him go, but letting our children go, is what we, as parents, all have to do at some point.
Years ago, before I had my son, I read Khalil Gabrin’s ‘The Prophet’ for the first time, and was impacted by the part ‘On Children’, and it continues to resonate with me. My son will always be my son, but he is his own person, with his own thoughts and feelings, and his own life to live, and I will continue to remind myself of this as he boards that plane on Saturday.
On Children
Kahlil Gibran
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.
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