Mother's Day
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.
--Khalil Gibran