My two girls (Kaitlyn and Alexis) and I wandered up a long pathway into a wooded canyon above their grammar school and church grounds.

While only 100 yards off the path of the school grounds, we suddenly found ourselves hypnotized by the sounds, feel, smell, and quietness of this urban forest.

They enthusiastically dragged me up the canyon until we arrived at their destination; an eerie entrance to a small cave.

From a distance, we stared at it — as they anxiously told me horrific, brutal folklore stories of kids from years gone by that dared reason and stepped into the sinister home.

The more they spoke, the more the mythology of the cave came alive.

I dared them to enter, and I saw them pull, like a tug-of-war, at two opposing feelings that were core to their very essence — fear and desire.

Their fear of the unknown anxiously battling with their desire to explore.

And in this moment, in this glorious moment, I saw a reflection of myself in my children’s eyes.