Dearest Sara

There is a tenderness in hard work, a calling not easily dismissed, and I sense you feel this deeply. -- You’ve taken an oath, a promise to remain steady amidst the currents that swell around you. -- Your loyalty, bound like silver cords that glimmer under starlight, is something to be cherished. But with loyalty comes hardship—harder yet when innocence is marred, when the good and fragile suffer greatly undeserved. -- I understand that quiet ache, that sense of weight when the work you do feels daunting, almost beyond human bearing. To face that knowing, and still to press on, is a quiet kind of bravery. -- I think of roots buried deep in the soil, those beneath trees and bushes that weather storms unseen. Such roots do not snap, nor do they bend easily. In them is a quiet strength, a trust in the earth that binds them. -- Hold fast to small joys. Let the sky be your balm—the moon in your silver hair, casting peace upon the waves that lap the shore, soft and foamy as though trying to embrace it all. -- There are small fish in those waters, Sara, too small to bear the tides’ wrath yet finding their place within it, undeterred. The world holds beauty even as we carry the burden of sadness within it. -- Find comfort in that sky and those waves, for they speak to a truth as old as time. But for no other could I write this way. -- Jurisprudence may be a guide to duty, yet nature is the guide to our souls. You are part of it all, rooted in the deepest earth yet reaching for the stars. -- Keep your heart open, and know that in each day’s labor, you build a legacy that runs as deep and as true as the roots that hold fast to the soil. -- With all my friendship and deepest understanding, to you I loyally remain. -- Dear Sara, -- James McLain