At Paige and Ross’ wedding, October 2025
The other day in Starbucks, a father walked in holding his beautiful little girl. She couldn’t have been more than a year old wearting a pink fleece sweatshirt, tiny pants, socks, and the smallest Skida hat I’ve ever seen. We didn’t even know they made them that small.
She gazed out the window, looking up at the church, watching the clouds drift by. Completely present. Then she looked at me. I smiled. She smiled back.
I turned to my husband as tears welled up.
He asked, “What’s wrong?”
I said, “I miss their littleness.”
When I looked back at her, still tear, something in her shifted. Her sweet smile softened into compassion, innocent curiosity. Not wanting her to think she caused my tears, I quickly smiled again. A little reassurance. It was just my stuff. As it usually is.
The Holidays Aren’t the Same
Fourth of July. Halloween. Easter.
These have quietly become holidays I dread. Our children are all grown and have moved away. The anticipation, the excitement, the magic, the tiny costumes, the chaos - those days are behind us.
Now I’m on the outside looking in, watching other families do what we once did. Maybe taking it for granted. I know I did. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they’re doing the best they can. Youth is wasted on the young. The regret of not being very Present then.
No doublt, I had moments - those I-never-want-to-forget-this flashes of presence, but mostly, I was somewhere else, doing something else. Youth was wasted on the young mom.
The Hardest Part
In a recent phone conversation about the upcoming Christmas holiday, I told one of our daughters, “The hardest part of raising children isn’t the raising. It’s the letting go.”
I wish I’d known that earlier.
Or maybe I don’t.
Or maybe if I had, I would have been more present, knowing how quickly the magic disappears, how fleeting innocence really is. Those moments were gifts. Presents. Gifts I sometimes feel I didn’t receive as deeply as I could have.
And yet… we must have done something right. They all live independent lives. They love us. They love each other. That is the gift and the ache of raising children, that they grow, and go.
The Wings and the Pain
No one told me any of this. My parents were hands-off. But they knew about the Wings, the way children lift off into their own lives. The lift comes with love, support, guidance. And for the ones left behind - pain, regret, and a scarcity of time.
Tick tock. Tick tock.
My mom hinted at the pain once, slamming the door before me, crying in my arms, as I left home for the last time. Years later, my dad confessed I had broken her heart. At the time, she blamed my then-husband, but the truth was simpler: She didn’t want me to leave but knew she couldn’t keep me from leaving.
She didn’t try.
She also didn’t prepare me for how much it would hurt when it was my turn. Thanks, Mom?
So now, I kind of dread our coffee shop runs.
Which tiny bit of yumminess will walk (or be carried) through the door this time?
A sweet song comes on the speakers and I’m undone. Maybe it’s the holidays. Maybe it’s turning 60. Maybe it’s both.
I don’t know.
I just know it’s hard.
And I also know that having children is somehow the most selfish and the most selfless act at the same time. Certainly not for the faint of heart.