Our parents create an environment in which we can grow. We call it the home. The home is the most powerful place on earth. It is the cradle of the soul. Our minds and personalities, our loves and our hates, our fears and our dreams are all molded in the home. The home is the workshop of God, where the process of character-making is silently, lovingly, imperceptibly carried on. We search throughout our lives for love and identity, and if we are fortunate, we may find it.

The quest for identity will always lead us back to our families. They are the ones with whom we discover our potential, as well as our limitations. They are the ones through whom and with whom we learn how to live. It is sheer hubris to think that we are "self-made" women and men. We learn how to live from other people and by no one more so than our parents and our siblings...

We have families because we are weak creatures, and God knows that we need them...

-James Bryan Smith, Rich Mullins: His Life and Legacy, An Arrow Pointing to Heaven

...And I realized that this whole parenting thing was bigger than just me and Ang. Maya's growth - spiritually, socially, mentally - will be an extension of what has made us.

Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Our siblings, Our parents, Their parents, Their parents before them...
All have contributed to the legacy that leads up to my daughter's life... and life that may eventually come from, or be given to her.