The name of my blog, The Tunnel’s End, is from a poem my daughter wrote for me as a birthday gift in 2012. With her permission, here it is in its entirety.
I. Sacrifice
It is the sacrifices in times of wind-whipped weather
that I will always remember. Time passed easily.
With the sparrow singing its electric song during nature walks,
the blush of dogwood at the close of spring,
and watching twigs drift under bridges, lost in the grayness
of a tired stream.
You taught me how to observe. Without your instruction,
I never would have learned
to stop and pay attention.
You showed me how to look at a world caught
in blue-black darkness. When night falls, it does not always
hum a magnetic harmony, and sometimes friends
learn from deciduous trees, losing leaves in frost.
You showed me how to overcome an onslaught of winter winds!
Always put on mittens, and listen to fear’s gifted whispers.
II. Fruit
These are times in which we must strive for freedom.
Now, in the throes of brutal battles, the light of liberation
waits at the tunnel’s end.
Finally, liberation.
At home, you’ve prepared for the summer to turn cold.
Whenever I hear the wind whistle, I remember the earlier years,
long nights of war, long nights of sacrifice,
gifts that thrive, unforgotten.