The Mother on the Other Side

I’ve always thought that becoming a mother happens once.

It happened when my first baby was born. One moment, he was part of me; the next, he was in my arms. A baby was born, and so was I.

I didn't have the word matrescence in my vocabulary back then. I didn't understand that becoming a mother would be a profound transformation—not just physically, but emotionally, psychologically and in the way we understand ourselves. I only knew that I loved this tiny person beyond anything, while simultaneously trying to figure out who I was now that my life had changed so completely.

I certainly didn't know that motherhood would ask something new of me again.

And yet, nineteen years later, there I was: helping my youngest move into his college dorm.

There were lists to check, belongings to organize, last-minute errands and all the ordinary busyness that helps us avoid the enormity of a moment. And then, suddenly, it was time to leave. To get in the car without him.

I knew I would miss him. What surprised me was how familiar some of the feelings were.

That same strange mixture of pride and grief. The desire to hold on and the knowledge that holding on would be the wrong thing to do. The certainty that he was ready to fly and the very human wish that perhaps he could stay home just a little while longer.

It brought me back to those early postpartum days.

Not because a college departure is the same as giving birth. It isn't. Yet both moments mark a profound shift in the relationship between mother and child—and in the mother herself.

After my babies were born, I had to learn how to mother someone who was no longer part of my body. I had to discover a new identity, new rhythms and a new way of being in the world.

Now, as my youngest leaves home, I am being asked to discover another version of motherhood.

And maybe that's what I'm beginning to understand: motherhood doesn't transform us just once.

It keeps asking us to evolve.

Our children grow, and we grow alongside them. Their first steps, first days of school, increasing independence, graduations and departures each require us to loosen our grip on one version of motherhood and make room for another.

There is grief in that. Of course there is.

But there is also pride. Joy. Freedom. Possibility. And the deep satisfaction of watching someone you love step into a life that is increasingly his own.

I can miss the little boy whose hand once fit perfectly inside mine and celebrate the young man whose hand no longer does.

Both can be true.

Maybe that is the gift—and the challenge—of motherhood. We don't simply become mothers and then remain unchanged while our children grow. We evolve, and evolve again, alongside them.

My child is evolving.

And so am I.

Hugs!