A few weeks ago, I wrote about our last Silkie becoming a mom and the new flock we were trying to protect.

Quick update: they are all alive and doing well.

The three little black chicks follow Momma Silkie around the outside area during the day, scratching at the dirt and learning how to be chickens. Then every night, they come back inside and tuck themselves underneath her to sleep.

They are getting bigger and more independent, but they still know where to go when it gets dark.

I’ve been thinking about that.

Maybe that is what a fortress is supposed to be. Not somewhere you hide forever, but somewhere you are protected long enough to grow strong. Somewhere you can leave, explore, make mistakes, and still know how to find your way home.

Recently, I went to my aunt’s 95th birthday party. She is my dad’s sister, and she is still sharp, healthy, on no medication, and very much herself.

One of my cousins, who I had not seen in a while, asked me, “Do you have a big garden like Uncle Jim did?”

And I do.

That question hit me harder than he probably realized. My dad has been gone for years, but that is something people still remember about him. Uncle Jim had a big garden. He grew things. He built things. He knew how to take care of the land and provide for his family.

And somewhere along the way, he taught me to do the same.

Not through long speeches. My dad was not exactly a long-speech kind of guy. Most of those lessons came from standing next to him while he worked. You held something. You carried something. You watched. You got corrected. Sometimes loudly.

Then you tried again.

Eventually, without really noticing, some of what he knew became part of what you knew.

Now I have a big garden like Uncle Jim did. I raise chickens. I build things when something needs to be protected. I know enough to not feel completely helpless when something breaks.

That is how legacy works sometimes. It does not always arrive as money, property, or some grand lesson passed down at exactly the right moment. Sometimes it is a garden row. A tool. A way of fixing something. A voice that comes back to you years later when you need it.

My son Jack recently went on a backpacking trip with a friend and asked if I had a knife he could take.

I handed him the Randall knife that belonged to my dad.

If you know Randall knives, you know they are not ordinary knives. They are handmade in Florida, there is around a seven-year wait to get one, and this particular knife is probably worth somewhere between $1,200 and $1,500.

Jack looked at me like I was crazy.

There was no way he was taking that into the woods.

But I made him.

Because I could immediately hear my dad—the Colonel—in that rough voice of his:

“What the hell good is having a nice knife if it doesn’t go anywhere with you when you need it?”

He would have been right.

What good is it?

A good tool is meant to be used. A good lesson is meant to travel with you. A meaningful life is not supposed to sit perfectly protected in a drawer where nothing can ever happen to it.

That knife was built for the woods. It belonged with Jack on that trip, not sitting safely at my house because we were afraid it might get scratched.

And it was more than a knife.

It was my dad going into the woods with his grandson.

It was something passed from one generation to another, still doing what it was made to do.

My guess is Jack will have a garden someday too. Maybe not now. Maybe not because I told him he should. But someday he may feel the need to plant something, build something, fix something, or provide for his family in a way that feels familiar, even if he cannot immediately explain why.

Maybe he will realize he already knows more than he thought.

All four of my kids are grown or quickly getting there. They are smart, capable, successful, and self-sufficient. They have their own lives and do not need me in the same obvious ways they once did.

That can be a strange feeling as a parent.

When they are young, they need you for everything. Food, rides, money, homework, reassurance, broken hearts, bad dreams, and problems that seem small to you but feel enormous to them.

Then they grow up.

They figure things out. They make their own decisions. They build careers and families. They stop calling about every little problem, and part of you wonders whether they need you much at all.

But maybe that is the wrong way to look at it.

Maybe the proof that they needed you is that they do not need you in the same way anymore.

The goal was never to make them dependent on us forever. The goal was to give them a safe place long enough to become strong. To teach them enough that they could walk into the woods carrying what they needed.

My dad did that for me.

I needed him, even when I did not realize everything he was giving me. The skills. The toughness. The garden. The willingness to use the good knife instead of saving it forever.

My kids needed me too.

Maybe they still do, just differently.

Maybe they need less rescuing and more reminding. Less instruction and more trust. Maybe sometimes they just need to know that the fortress is still there. That home is still home. That they can go out into the world, build their own lives, and still come back when it gets dark.

That little Silkie cannot explain any of this, of course. She just lets those chicks wander during the day and gathers them back underneath her at night.

She protects them without stopping them from growing.

That might be the whole job.

We build the fortress, but eventually we have to open the door.

We pass down the tool.

We plant the garden.

We teach what we can.

And then we trust that some of it became part of them, just like some of our parents became part of us.

1. What you learned without realizing it

Think about the things you know how to do because someone let you stand beside them. The lesson may not have felt important then, but years later it may be part of how you care for your family, lead people, solve problems, or move through the world.

2. The good things you are saving

Some things should be protected. Others should be used. The good dishes, the nice jacket, the special bottle, the handmade knife—sometimes using them is the best way to honor them.

3. The people who need you differently now

As people grow, their needs change. Independence does not mean the relationship matters less. Sometimes it means the love, work, and guidance did exactly what they were supposed to do.

Use something you have been saving.

Wear it. Open it. Carry it. Cook with it. Take it into the woods.

Let the good thing do what it was made to do.

The Gift of an Ordinary Day by Katrina Kenison

This is a thoughtful book about family, children growing up, changing seasons, and learning to appreciate ordinary life while it is still happening.

It fits this week because raising children is partly about holding on and partly about letting go. The challenge is recognizing that both are forms of love.

“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”

— James Baldwin

Most of us are building some kind of fortress around what we care about—a family, a business, a team, a dream, or a life we hope will outlast us in some small way.

The goal is not to keep everything inside forever. The goal is to protect it, teach it, strengthen it, and eventually trust it to go out into the world.

And maybe, when it needs to, it will still know the way home.

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