Kids don’t come with manuals on how to raise them. But kids don’t get handbooks on how life works either. It’s a learn as you go process, hopefully with reverent guidance and the experience of others to draw upon. Day to day, the ups and downs can be a kiddie coaster to ascents and free-falls that take your breath away. Ultimately, a life lived is a unique fingerprint in time. None before. None after.

And one thing not in either manual is the irony of traveling together, parent and child, on different paths. You say “potato” and I say “kettle chips” but it’s so much more than that.

As a parent, what you sign up for is life. Always and forever a mother or father. Nothing short of that. Sometimes paths cross and you see your son or daughter for who they are. And for a moment they see you. We should be so blessed to live to that day for it takes many moons. Most of our lives we are “Mom” and “Dad” and that is but a part of a larger responsibility we bear.

When this vision makes sense, and these temporary boundaries with labels and nicknames dissolve into a greater whole, you “Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.” The paths cross and your legacy stares at you asking, “Have you done your best?”

And you don’t need a manual for that.

Quote: William Blake

Photo credit: Patrick Fore (unsplash.com)