A Cinquain is a poem with five lines that follow a specific format. Towards the end of our last school year, my oldest was assigned four different poems on any desired topic. This weekend, as I was organizing and storing school items, I came across her work.

I am a lover of words, but when you read something that your child has written about you….something that has given you insight into her/his heart, it can become a song.

Part of her poem made me laugh(you will too if you know me well), part of it was a surprise as it revealed her attentiveness to my life outside motherhood, and the last word felt like an anchor.

Because if you would have asked me separately to give you one word, one hope of what I desire to define my relationship with my children…I would have used the same word that she wrote as the summary of the theme of her poem.(that is the requirement for line 5: a summary of the theme of the cinquain, which is the first line.)

Cooking? When I gently asked her about this word, her response was…..”Well, you make french toast…..sometimes.”

The Last Word. The Final Say.

“Guide.”

This is all I have ever wanted to be as a mom. Not a dictator nor a tyrant. And, not aloof or absent.

The older they get, the less I will say. I will just continue to walk down the path set before me. before us. until it forks.

The more they age, the more space I will afford them to seek their own way, so that they can find their own footing. Not abandon, but simply encourage their own voice.

Hopefully, they will have the map in their mind and heart that we have used together thus far. The Map. The Word. For their Journey.

And for my own.