Daughter,

may you be as free
as your own heart asks you to be.

Walk every road with steady feet.
Let no passing wind
choose your direction.

Never mistake noise
for the voice
that has been waiting inside yourself.

There are silences
that know every fear by name.

They also know
the first step
that leaves fear behind.

May the sun
meet your eyes
without asking you to lower them.

And when night comes,

may it never find
a place to live within you.

May it find
a woman who knows

that staying awake
when others have closed their eyes

is sometimes
the bravest thing we do.

Do not measure your life
by every fall—
or by none.

Measure it
by the truth
that keeps bringing you back to yourself.

Never become smaller
so someone else can feel bigger.

Never wear someone else's words
to make your own acceptable.

May love
find you whole.

And may it never ask
you to become less than you are.

When you lose,

look at the river.

The water keeps moving.
The river keeps going.

When sadness comes,
offer it a chair.

Listen.

Then let it go
before it begins to believe
your home is its own.

Keep tenderness
the way someone lost in the desert
keeps water.

One day,

someone
will need it
more than you.

That is when
you will learn

that giving
is another way of staying.

And when your children—
my grandchildren—

look at the world,

may they find its colours
because you put them back.

May they see
that trees still give shade,

even
to the one
who came with an axe.

May they stand
beside a river

until they understand

that the water always leaves,

and still,

the river remains.

And when
I can no longer
walk beside you,

do not look for me
in the ground.

Look for me

in a promise
that is kept.

In an embrace
that asks for nothing.

In quiet courage.

In hope
that blooms after winter.

For if I leave you
anything,

let it be

neither my name,
nor my home,
nor even the memory of me.

Let it be

the freedom to live
without ever
leaving yourself.

And if one day
this tired world
forgets
how to begin again,

I hope
you will be
the one
who remembers.

The one
who shows it

that there is always
one first colour
strong enough
to break the grey.

Then,

wherever I am,

I will know

that everything
I hoped for you

has found
its place
in the world.

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