I’m not ashamed to cry. Tears can be a good thing. But when it happens too often, too long, one realizes it’s a problem. In the recent years I’ve cried too many times. It helps sometimes to let it all out. But the most important, the most profound moment transpired just few week ago; when again I closed the door behind me, lay on the bed, curled, rocking and sobbing for everything that went wrong, for everything I couldn’t change, for all dreams, possibilities, disappointments, for everything. That’s when my daughter came into the room and climbed up the bed. She asked why am I crying. I said it’s because I’m a little sad. She hugged me, and asked to play with her. I said I will in a minute. And in that very moment, I had a flashback. My mother sitting in a green chair next to the window, holding a rosary, and crying. I watched her for a while, and when I asked why she’s crying, she answered, it was nothing, everything’s o.k. Of course it wasn’t and I knew it… The cycle repeated, but for me it ended on that very day. I don’t want my daughter to ever see me cry like that again. I promised myself that I will never, never allow her to see her mother in such a vulnerable state. I should be her protector, her hero, and not the other way around…We all want to shelter our children. Unfortunately, most experiences they receive in life are out of our hands. But, if I can control what she gets from me; then I’ll do my very best to provide opportunities that will foster her beautiful spirit… She can grow up to be whoever she wants to be, but my gift is to give her the best of me, and with that she can be the best her… or so I hope.