Duty of Care

From the moment we are born we inherit a swelling sack of losses and failures, they ride on our backs and push us face down into the earth. Then limitlessly, unconditionally, we will feel hands of strength, pushing harder on us, pushing until there is dirt in our lungs and our skin, tortured with bruises, and then there is release. The same hands begin to uproot us, pulling us upwards towards the sky, towards light. What is parenthood? Why should any individual be responsible for another's entire being; their health, their minds, their everything. Torches drop from nowhere into the hands of mothers and fathers, and they super glue these torches to themselves and carefully, so slowly, guide their children through tunnel after tunnel. Children run. They stumble, they are lost at any time but the torch never fails to give light. This is what it means to me. There comes a time when the world is crashing down and we cannot blame ourselves so we blame this light, we hurt the light, thrash our limbs and roll boulders its way. But the world will not crash, we will grow taller, stronger, and we will stop fighting. So that when we are old, when we are learning to finally able to walk confidently, steadily, like a turtle that has been walking for a long time, we can finally, finally every once in a while, turn around and simply smile a little and say 'thank you'. We have a duty of care, we have a responsibility to love the people who have sacrificed decades towards the children they bled tears for. Our love will not compare, but we can make the hurt stop, we can be at peace with each other, tell each other things not because we have to but because we know it matters, because sometimes light switches fumble. Coming to terms with one's adulthood is perhaps a challenge, a rocky stepping stone but summoning the decision to enter parenthood is beyond an unexperienced person's imagination. We learn to love through the way in which we are loved, and for every morsel and every crumb of our lives, we should be grateful and we should care because love may be overrated in so many ways, but in this way it will never be underrated enough.