To My Daughter

2025

05:05

Hip-HopSoul

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[Chorus]
I’ll be the shelter when the world feels unkind
I’ll be the voice that never leaves you behind
I’ll be the arms where you can rest and unwind
My child
I’ll be the light when the night hides the way
I’ll be the ground where your burdens can lay
I’ll be the door that is open each day
My child

[Verse 1]
You came to my arms too young to know time
Too new to the world, too soft to define
I counted each breath as a gift, as a sign
That life had been altered, your heart now in mine
I'm learning to guide without walls that confine
To show you the road, not the cost of the line
The path will be yours, not a shadow of mine
A journey unbroken, your spirit's design

Some mornings I see all the years on their way
They'll carry, they'll test you, they'll push and they'll weigh
But the ground that you walk on was levelled to stay
I laid it with labor, with loss, and with pain
I think of the nights I stayed restless, awake
Asking if I was ready for the steps you would take
I learned that no strength is ever handed for free
It's carved in the trial, it's earned painfully

I hoped you would learn through the gentlest hand
But the world still delivers what no one has planned
You will face what I cannot, take steps I withstand
But the life is your own, it is yours to command
I'll leave the light shining through the dark you face
If you lose your step, home is still your place
And strength isn't proven by volume or pace
Sometimes it's patience in holding your ground
Sometimes it's walking away from the chain
Sometimes it's silence instead of the flame
Sometimes it's rising to stand up again
Sometimes it's choosing to carry the pain

And when you look back, I hope you see clear
The ground that I built so you'd walk without fear
The work of my hands was to keep your way near
A light at the crossroads to guide you each year
I'll teach you that patience is not just to wait
It's moving with purpose, not bound by the gate
I'll show you that strength is not hiding the pain
It's speaking your truth and still standing the same

Love is not something you trade for a price
It lives in the giving, not counting it twice
When fear tries to bind you and freeze you in ice
You learned how to walk by the fall and the rise
The stumble, the bruise, they became your device
The path that you carry will open new skies
When you are grown, I'll still see your face
I'll still hear the nights when your cries filled this place
I hope you forgive the times I fell short
The needs in your voice, the answers you sought
I guessed at the meaning each sound tried to show
But love was the anchor that held through it all

[Verse 2]
I've lived through the errors that shaped what I know
They taught me the truths I now hand as you grow
Keep faith in your voice when the world tells you no
Keep walking with courage wherever you go
The measure of courage is not in the claim
It lives in the action, the fire, the flame
It grows when you stumble and rise up again
It's found in the self, not the titles you name

If my shadow should ever get in your sight
If my words ever cover what you know is right
If my hands ever hold when you're ready for flight
Then step out and carry your truth to the light
The years laid a path that I learned how to tread
With the stones and the weight pressing hard on my head
I was shaped by the trials that cut at my chest
By the hope that kept burning when nothing was left

Wrong turns and hard falls are part of the way
The truth is louder than the mask we display
The ground may split open, the world may divide
But hope can be found where the fractures reside
Voices will tell you to chase what is wild
But value is here, in the life by your side
Don't trade away peace just to win their applause
Don't bend who you are to fit into their laws

I ran down the roads I believed led to more
But each one returned me to places before then I
stopped long enough for the pattern to show
No shame in the waiting, the meaning was clear
There will be days you feel lesser in size
But strength isn't measured by height in the eyes
Look deeper inside, you are larger than fear
The weight of your spirit is what brought you here

If the world leaves you lost, you can always come home
No matter the losses that get in your way
The door will be open by night or by day
Put down all your weight, this place is your own
I'll be here if my hair turns gray
If my hands go slow, my arms will still stay
There will be times I get firm in my way
But love is the force in the words that I say

And if the years take me where you can’t call
If my voice is a memory, faint in the hall
Remember the lessons that stand over all
That my love won't shake by time or by fall
I'll live in your courage, your laughter, your pain
I'll live in the moments you rise up again
I'll live in your questions, the depth you retain
And the grace you'll carry through loss and through gain

So walk as yourself and lift your head high
Don't trade away light and don't settle for shy
The world is reshaped by the strength you supply
By the truth in your voice as the seasons go by
My daughter, my pride, no distance divides
No voices can break what our bond will provide
Forever you walk with my love at your side
Forever my child, my heart, my life