“For My Daughter, I Climb”
(Sasha Dietze)

I am so tired of climbing mountains
that other people pretend aren’t even there.
Tired of pushing against doors
that should have opened the moment I knocked.

I am tired of handing my daughter,
my heart,
my whole world,
to a system that swears it cares
and watching that system
drop her.
Not once.
But twice.
Face first.
Wheelchair crashing.
Trust shattering.

They tell me,
“We’re doing our best.”
But their best looks a lot like negligence
wrapped in excuses
and tied with a ribbon that says
“We care.”
Because they say the words
but their hands
— the hands that were supposed to hold her chair —
were empty
when she needed them most.

They tell me she belongs.
But belonging shouldn’t look like
a 4th-grade girl sitting alone in a corner,
left to be quiet,
left to exist
instead of being taught,
guided,
given the chance to rise.

They are not raising her to her potential.
They are containing her.
They are babysitting her.
A glorified day care they dare call a classroom.

And then there’s the government,
the maze built on paperwork and apathy.
Applications I’ve filled out
not once,
not twice,
but three times
because someone lost it
and someone else didn’t care
and someone else didn’t return a call.
And somehow
I am the one made to feel like the burden.
Like the desperate mother asking for too much
when all I’m asking for
is what she needs to simply live
and be safe
and be seen.

Do they know
the weight they add to my shoulders?
Do they care
that every missing form,
every rude voice,
every door slammed shut
is another brick
I carry up this mountain?

Some days,
I feel like I’m failing her.
Like I’m screaming into a void
that only echoes back my own fear.
Like my hands are tied
while people who have never met my daughter
are making choices
with zero understanding
of her heart,
her mind,
her needs,
her worth.

I want to grab the whole system by the shoulders
and shake it
and yell,
“THIS IS A CHILD.
MY CHILD.
A child who deserves more than the corner.
More than the fall.
More than being forgotten
because her body moves differently
or needs more support
or requires more time.”

I want to scream,
“Do your job!”
But instead,
I climb.
I fight.
I push.
I advocate.
I show up.
Again and again
and again
because my daughter
deserves a world that doesn’t apologize
for breaking her.
She deserves a world
that never breaks her at all.

I am tired,
but I am not done.

You can underestimate me.
You can ignore me.
You can pretend my daughter is invisible.

But you will not stop me.

Because every form I fill out,
every meeting I attend,
every battle I fight,
every tear I swallow
is fueled by love so fierce
it could burn every broken system
to the ground.

I climb this mountain for her.
I bleed for her.
I roar for her.
And until this world learns
how to protect her,
teach her,
respect her,
hold her—
I will be the mother who moves mountains
by sheer will
and refuses to let the world
drop her daughter
ever again.