Don't Be Afraid

Child, your future is best left unspoiled, so I may be too vague, or not vague enough. Don’t be afraid of  the contents within this letter . . . (Although I know you will) Even your name rhymes with delicate, which you are reminded of constantly. (Don’t worry. You aren’t.) Try not to be afraid. 

Okay, on to the real letter.

There cannot be restoration without the rumbles of ruin. And some, hidden between bones and soils of the deep below, will never again bask in even the faintest of sunlight. 

There cannot be love without days spent falling into dreary depths. Caged within bars, tempted by far-off blue sky, you will experience heartbreak.

There cannot be life without death. You will learn this the hard way. You will get through it.

You have already tasted the fallen branch, but not yet the crash of timber, smoldering, in our remains. 

Yet to feel the forest burn, hopefully a far-off fate, but I felt the need to warn you nevertheless:

One day the ash will reign.

But this is not why I write to you, dear me, to terrify with what someday may be, but to remind you what the world has known since the moment you were born:

There cannot be Death 

without Life.

In charred soil, beneath an ember-streaked sky, you will be among the seedlings who rise from collapse.

It may not feel so, but you have the power to guide those who follow, as you have been guided by those before you.

You can transform ruin to restoration, heartbreak to love, 

Or, if you are far gone,

Become one of the ancient roots,

Of once-towering Sequoias,

Whispering the way.