21 Letters – #16 Glenn III
You were the quiet spark
in the middle of the storm,
the reason my lungs remembered
how to breathe.
I might have stayed,
buried under silence,
if not for the sound of your voice
asking questions
too wise for your age,
too brave for my fear.
You never knew,
but you pulled me out ...
not with your hands,
but with your being.
You existed,
and that was enough
to remind me
I was meant to live.
But this is not a poem
about what I left behind.
This is about you.
The light you carry,
the fire you’ve never once
been afraid to show.
I've seen strength
in many forms
but none like yours.
Not loud.
Not cruel.
But rooted,
honest,
unchanging
even when the world told you to bend.
You have this …
fierce sense of justice
like a compass that doesn’t ask
for permission to point north.
Even when your voice shakes,
you speak.
Even when you stand alone,
you stand.
What amazes me
is not that you're right
so often
but that you are yours.
Your thoughts don’t echo mine,
or his.
They are your own.
Grown from books,
from watching,
from that deep place in you
that already knows
how to separate truth from noise.
You –
my son,
my mirror,
my teacher –
are becoming a man
I admire
more than I could ever say
without choking on the awe of it.
You hold space for others,
but you don’t shrink.
You question,
but you never wound.
You believe
in people,
in right,
in yourself.
And if this world
has any hope
left in it,
it's because of young men
like you.
May you never trade
your voice for silence,
your fire for ease,
your truth for anyone else’s comfort.
I left because of you.
But I stayed gone
because I saw the world
through your eyes
and it looked
worth saving.
With all the love
a heart can hold,
– Mom