Very few life events unfold as desired or with the precision that one might imagine. Sometimes greater, sometimes all together different, our experiences develop and define our very existence. It is when we are observant of all that exists around us, combined with the awareness of our own intentions, that both the impact of our every breath and the life around us can become most beautiful and transformative.
I will never forget the moment when I opened my heart to you. I spread my wings and leapt. I trusted that it would be my ability to be vulnerable that would bond us as mother and daughter. I felt that you trusted this, too. You trusted in our immeasurable connection each and every time you looked deep into my eyes, while I fed you on my chest or lay with you to usher in revitalizing rest. You grew in my arms and in my heart.
Love is vast in the experience of in its unfolding, if you allow it. You taught me this and so many other nuggets of true wisdom. You have shown me the world -- you offered me a beautiful and colorful lens that I now see everything through. You have delivered me to the most magnificent vantage point.
You bring me more joy than I ever believed was even possible. This feeling thrives, despite the tears, the challenges, the hurt, the distance and the persistent heartbreak. I love you to the moon and back -- that same moon in the night sky, so vast and enveloping, that it ensures we are protected under its cover, with our way lit to each other.
I cannot wait to share with you all that I have learned. I will allow you to see all of my good days, as well as my bad. I will show you laughter and sadness, knowledge and innocence, understanding and forgiveness, freedom and discipline and I will let you show me the way. I cannot wait to show you the world.
I will never regret doing everything that is in my power to support you, while learning how to develop that power to be used for peace, connection, love and gentle grace -- a grace that binds our beings together in the sweetest of ways. This grace is a poetry, a symphony, beautifully woven together and twisted like your curls and your braids.
You illuminate my way, just like that moon and the stars and the sun, all used for direction. It is your very being that navigates me through this world, guiding me to the places where I wish to make great change, especially in myself.
I promised you, in those very first days, that I would always be available to you. I vowed that I would, most importantly, help you to develop a solid sense of self. I wish to offer you so much more. I wish to rise and fall like an ocean wave, with you. I wish to offer you light that reflects your beautiful colors to the sky. I wish that same light to shine through you -- a raindrop -- light that you refract into the most spectacular rainbow that brings hope to many. I wish to witnesses you, that same drop of water, return to the power of the tides, by way of the rushing mountain waterfall and stream, one that is clear and cool and shares its oasis with all. I wish for your roots to run deep, your branches to stretch wide, your trunk to stand tall and strong, all with a flexibility to move with the wind.
You have taught me how to be courageous.
Now, I hope to teach you how to be brave.
And I wish to show you how to love, how to truly love, from the depths and the heights and the breadths and the widths of our beings. Love with passion and abandon, as if you, too, have spread your wings and leapt with a trust and a knowing that you will fly.
Ubuntu.