She doesn’t know it, but I watch her every morning when she zips up her backpack. It’s pink, overstuffed, half-unzipped from yesterday’s rush. There’s a crumpled drawing sticking out the side— a stick figure with a beard and tired eyes. She told me it was me. Smiling. But what gets me isn’t the picture. It’s the way she shoulders that pack like it’s light, like it’s nothing. Because I know what we pass on to our kids isn’t just DNA or bedtime stories. It’s the invisible weight. The stuff they carry that they never knew had our name on it. My daughter doesn’t know she’s carrying the best version of me. She doesn’t know how many nights I sat in silence, fighting not demons but the fear that my love might not be enough to cancel out the wars that shaped me. I want her backpack to stay light. I want her to grow up knowing she doesn’t have to earn love through pain, or bury her emotions to survive. I want her to believe stillness doesn’t mean danger and that silence can be soft. So I carry what I can, and what I can’t, I name. So it doesn’t end up in her bag by mistake.