FINALE: “WHAT WE LEAVE IN THE GARDEN”

# FINALE: “WHAT WE LEAVE IN THE GARDEN”

Once upon a time, I thought

A crown could tell me who to be.

I thought that love meant holding on,

That someone else could finish me.

But winter came and stripped the trees,

And left me standing on my own.

I found a song beneath the snow,

And learned to make a home.

A child is watching every day,

The things we do, the words we say.

The doors we close, the hands we hold,

The stories young hearts learn to know.

We think they're far too small to see

The things we hide so carefully.

But every promise, every scar,

Can teach them who they think they are.

I thought I could protect my child

By choosing every road she'd take.

I called it love, I called it care,

But love can wound when ruled by fear.

I wanted gold to keep her safe,

A perfect name, a perfect place.

But no one grows beneath a hand

That never lets them learn to stand.

What we leave in the garden,

What we bury, what we grow,

Lives in little hearts like seeds

Long after we let go.

Every word becomes a window,

Every choice becomes a door.

And the children learn what love is

From the lives we lead before them.

I was somebody before him,

I was somebody alone.

I made a shelter from the winter,

I made a garden of my own.

And if my daughter asks me

Why her father wasn't near,

I'll tell her truth without the hatred,

I'll tell her love without the fear.

She will know she was wanted.

She will know she was enough.

She will know a woman's power

Doesn't come from being loved.

And if her father walks beside us,

He must learn what love requires:

Not a promise made in springtime,

But the tending of a fire.

Let her ask a thousand questions.

Let her find her own way through.

Let her know the world is wider

Than the life we planned for two.

Let her love without surrender,

Let her leave without disgrace.

Let her learn that home is something

Built with truth and given grace.

And when the night is cold around her,

When the road is hard to see,

May she hear the song within her

Saying, “You are still free.”

What we leave in the garden,

What we nurture, what we sow,

Will become the shade above them,

Will become the paths they know.

We cannot choose their every footstep.

We cannot spare them every fall.

But we can teach them love means freedom,

And there is room enough for all.

A crown can shine and still be heavy.

A home can stand and still need care.

A heart can break and still be open.

A child can heal when truth is there.

So let the garden keep on growing.

Let the branches reach the sun.

The story isn't just the ending—

It's what we teach when it's begun.

Once upon a time, I thought

I had to find where I belonged.

Now I will teach her how to listen

For the garden's quiet song.

And when she writes her own beginning,

May she know what I have learned:

Love is not a crown to carry.

Love is a garden we must tend.

*One sustained female note. Piano resolves softly, leaving a final breath of silence.*