We bring children into this world.
We nourish and provide for them as best we can.
We watch over them as they sleep at night and hold the back of their new bicycle as they learn to ride a two-wheeler.
We protect them with our lives, watch them grow and eventually they leave the inner sanctum of heart and home to walk among the wolves.
They marry, have children of their own and radiate joy.
The circle of life.
We pray for them, worry about them, rejoice in their accomplishments and weep for their inevitable heartbreaks.
Our parental primal instincts emerge and we struggle against the riptides of life to shelter them from the unwelcome eventualities of the world.
But we cannot.
And that is the greatest fear of all.
NAR © 2023
The Elephant's Trunk 