I have talked with many parents who have experienced a mixture of both joy and sadness, of failures as well as achievements, of new needs and greater expectations as their kids grow year after year. There are parents who get hurt especially when their children leave their homes to start anew and have their own families. Yet, it is worth every part of it.
How is to be a good parent?
I chose the wisdom of Kahlil Gibran because he put it into beautiful words. Parenting is the law of divine love, as expressively put into words by 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 life 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.”
Grief melts away
Like snow in May,
As if there were no such cold thing.
