The Climb

I have learned

that gentleness in parenting

isn’t just softness

but a reverence for the rhythm

between the comfort of the trail

and the danger at the cliff's edge.

It is a climb:

each “yes” a breath,

each “no” a stone placed with care.

Together we scale a mountain of maybes,

peppered with hope and hesitation.

My weathered palms a guide

to his untested feet,

watching, mimicking,

believing the rock will hold

because I said it would.

And in those quiet moments,

where faith leaps before you feel the other side,

I pray that the ledges I leaned on

do not crumble beneath his trust.

I pray he rises,

not by avoiding the fall,

but by learning how to fall with grace

and begin again

in an eloquent dance with gravity.