From Firsts to Lasts: Where Joy and Grief Walk Hand in Hand

This week’s episode came to you a little later than usual, and honestly? I needed the pause. Our house has been buzzing with the kind of summertime chaos that feels both heavy and holy—baseball games, concerts, late-night swims, and just enough mama exhaustion to remind me I’m human.

But that space, the stepping back for a beat, gave me something unexpected. A front-row seat to the kind of moments that don’t announce themselves until they’ve already passed.

It’s funny, isn’t it? How we prepare for the big “firsts” - the first steps, first birthday, first days of school—but no one tells you to brace yourself for the “Lasts.”

Those sneak in like dusk swallowing daylight; so gradual you don’t realize it’s happened until the stars appear. The last time they reach for your hand, the last kiss at school drop-off, and the last time they fall asleep in your lap don’t come with photo ops or party themes. They come quietly, and sometimes, they leave before we realize they were even there.

This week I found myself watching my youngest and realizing, right in the moment, that his face had changed. His eyes, still familiar, held something deeper. A knowing. A shift. And there it was again: that ache of witnessing your child step further into the world, just as they’re stepping a little further away from you.

Motherhood is filled with these paradoxes: joy and heartbreak, pride and grief, beginnings that double as endings.

I wrote this episode sitting in that tension. Remembering all of the firsts I’ve been lucky enough to witness. Some I celebrated loudly, others I almost missed, and I found myself grieving the ones I didn’t realize were 'lasts' until much later.

There’s a kind of quiet mourning in motherhood that we don’t talk about enough. Not because we’re ashamed, but because we’re busy. Surviving and pouring out of an empty cup while also showing up. By doing so, we don’t always give ourselves permission to feel the full weight of change while we’re in the middle of it.

So this is your reminder, mama: it’s okay to feel it all. Even if toddler-ville is magical, it’s okay to miss the baby stage, we all know toddlers are just mischief disguised as magic anyway. It’s okay to cry at kindergarten graduations, and fifth grade promotions. It’s okay to grieve the woman you were, while honoring the one you’ve become.

This episode, From First Steps to Quiet Goodbyes, isn’t just about kids growing up. It’s about us, too. About how every milestone reshapes who we are, how we love, how we let go.

If you’re in a season of waving from the curb instead of walking them in, or you’re noticing more one-word answers and fewer bedtime stories, and if you’ve recently caught yourself thinking, 'Was that the last time?'—you’re not alone!

You’re in the beautiful, brutal middle. And Mama, you’re doing sacred work.

Let’s keep talking about it. Let’s name the ache AND the awe! If you’ve got a story, of a first you missed, or a last that caught you off guard I’d love to hear it. We’re writing this messy, meaningful story together.

With you in the chaos,

Heather