The Last

The Last time you ever nurse your baby. 

The last time they wear that adorable outfit.

The last day of preschool.

Many Lasts go by unnoticed. You never knew it was the Last. You just realize one day - oh yeah, that’s over.

The last time you ever read Goodnight Moon.

The last time they reach to hold your hand.

The last time they ask you to play with them. 

The last time they ask you to tuck them in.

The last time they go on the little kid rides at the carnival.

The last time they need help getting the knots out of their hair.

And it doesn’t stop when they’re little.

The last tooth lost.

The last time they dress up for Halloween.

The last time you take them to the pediatrician.

There are many varieties of lasts. 

There are the Sets of lasts. 

The last year of high school, and all of the milestones (lasts) it contains.

The last months of driving your kid around before they get their license.

The last sports season.

Some lasts are welcome: the good Lasts. The lasts you wished for and waited for. There still may be bittersweetness when it's over.

The last time they come into your bed in the middle of the night.

The last time you change their diaper.

The last time they need help tying their shoes. 

And then there are the family lasts. These hold heavier weight because with the older sibling’s lasts, at least it’s not the True, Final Last of All Time. 

The last outting to the trampoline park.

The last baby.

The last Christmas where someone believes in Santa. 

Some of the shifts are so subtle, only careful analysis would reveal them. In a full life, we rarely notice one side or the other.

The last time you look down on your babe, before they are taller than you. 

The last time they blow you a kiss when you drop them off at school.

The last time they draw a picture with I love you Mommy scrawled on it.

So many of these things happen a million times. It seems like it will be never-ending. Until one day, it is gone.

The last time you lay them down to sleep in their crib.

The last time they play with dolls.

The last time you give them a bath. 

For me, I have come to experience The Last not just in retrospect, but as a forecast. I see it on the horizon, swiftly approaching. My heart feels the familiar mix of resignation and disbelief, with a twinge of fear and resistance. These days I count down the months and years, until my Last child is no longer enthusiastic for the tooth fairy, Legos, and my snuggles. 

There is the great Mother Loss in all of this. It is a thrum of grief. The big Letting Go, that is always underway. From the time that baby pops out of you, and maybe before, you are always letting go. Let Go or Be Dragged as the old bumper sticker goes.

The last time you tickle your child. 

The last time they run laughing into your arms. 

The last time you play hide and seek together. 

I remember the day my youngest daughter frolicked at soccer, while we sat on the sidelines watching the older kids play. I was utterly infatuated with her in her little yellow dress, toddling towards me. “She’s going to grow up too, you know”, my mom quipped at me like a parrot of doom. I could have slapped her. Why would you ever say that?!? What good could it possibly do to suck out my joy in that moment. I know she was trying to be a realist. My mom was trying to quell my over-attachment. But please, dear god, let me never say anything of this sort to any young mother! Let them live in their bubble of joy before it bursts. 

Does knowing the end is extremely fucking nigh keep the bubble intact any longer? No. I’m not trying to give you a more eloquent delivery of the obvious than my mom did. You know the truth: they are swiftly growing up. 

I’m here to shine a light on the Letting Go.

The good news is that there is a way forward, and it doesn’t require attempting the impossible of holding on to life or slowing down time. 

A few things that bring peace, whether you are looking back at the lasts that are behind you., or forward to the ones that are imminent.

Perspective

I read the story of Jack Kornfield’s zen teacher demonstrating the nature of impermanence with a teacup. Melissa Kirsch gave a beautiful retelling of it in the New York Times: 

“He held up a ceramic tea cup, saying: ‘To me this cup is already broken. Because I know its fate, I can enjoy it fully here and now. And when it’s gone, it’s gone.’ The cup is already broken. The phone and wallet are already lost. We have everything we need. The things we’re afraid of losing are already gone.

Knowing this doesn’t keep the terror from setting in every time I think I’ve left my phone in a cab. But in the quiet moments when I’m calmer, I’m trying to meditate on the things I’m holding too tightly, to loosen my grip a little, to carry a little more lightly the teacup, the wallet or phone, the people and places and ideas I’m clutching, as if clutching will keep them from vanishing.”

Ultimately, there is no stability in anything.

Change is all there is.

Understanding cycles of life and death makes it sink in that we are no different from any of those old wrinkly people. We are moments away. We are no different than the frost-killed dahlias outside my window. 

The last pear to fall from the tree.

The last crocus bursting up from the earth.

The last canadian goose squawking through the sky on its trip south.

Another perspective shift that’s always been a helpful balance point to this pit of grief is the reality-based reframing that - This is Good. These are essentially the Best-case-scenario Lasts. Some parents never get to see their children grow up. To be faced with Mother Grief is to be lucky. You are one of the truly blessed ones. 

These are just the ordinary lasts that happen in the course of growing up, not the horrific, tragic, unimaginable lasts. If I manage to avoid slipping off the edge into a different pit of despair at what an unfair and brutal world it is, this perspective guilts me into acceptance. 

Acceptance always eases things. 

Acceptance

The Lasts abound in the first year. 

The last time you wear your baby in the wrap.

The last time you swaddle them tightly.

The last time they stay where you put them. 

I love the way mama Zen reminisces about putting away baby clothes and crying her eyes out. There are so many baby clothes to put away in the first year, monthly it seems. And every single Last Outfit is a chance to reflect on the swiftly passing time, the beautiful growing child, and your role in it all as provider, witness, lover, giver, nurturer. 

Ten years ago I confided to my therapist that I felt like crying when I looked at my babies’ pictures. I felt that there was something wrong with me for feeling that way, and I tried to stop. I tried to not miss them, and be happy that they were growing up. (Remember perspective? This is Good! I should be happy about it!). While the broader view felt more compassionate, flipping emotions like a switch did not work. Fighting what I was feeling and being ashamed of it only made it worse. 

Now when I teach non-resistance of emotion to moms for nervous system regulation, I use the reminder phrase: “Stop Stopping It”. Let it be there, whatever it is. “It belongs” as buddhist teacher Tara Brach says. Allowing yourself to cry is OK. There is actually no problem with just going on with your day, with sadness along for the ride. Taking some time to journal, and really acknowledge and process what you are feeling, with a friend or therapist, may also be needed.

 Presence

I want to share a story of a dear friend of mine who inspired me. Susan was in her thirties when she became a mother and by the time her kids became parents in their thirties, she was on the older side of grandmotherhood. Older and Wiser. She cared for her first grandbaby three times a week, and swam together in her pool all summer. It was a gorgeous pool overlooking the valley, with a stunning view. Susan’s son and his wife and baby daughter were moving to Wisconsin, might as well be the moon. I went to the young family’s going away party, and I watched in disbelief, my insides churning. I was feeling all the feels. Mostly I was feeling so much sadness that they were leaving. What was really confounding was Susan’s composure. Surely if I was in her place I would be tearing up, knowing it was the last gorgeous sunset, the last swim with my grandbaby, the last swim with her before they moved far away and I didn’t get to see her growing up everyday. 

But to look at Susan, you would have thought it was just another day. She was absolutely unruffled. Like a sage. She smiled and cooed and twinkled her eyes at that baby, gliding around the pool with her. She was truly present. It didn’t matter that the moving truck was parked by the curb and pulling out in 12 hours. All that mattered was connecting with that baby in that moment. 

That’s presence. To actually be there, and let the rest go. 

And in doing so, we love them well.

The opposite of presence is the thought loop that sometimes grips me - will this be the last time? Is this the last? It’s a question I often find myself wondering at this time in my life when my last baby is 7½ years old. Caught in the wondering, I miss the moment with her.

And I know the resolution. The passing of time is not the problem. The only “problem” is that the human mind resists change and assigns meaning to things. To resolve this, one just goes on living, one day at a time, one foot in front of the other. “Turn the page to the next chapter”, as Daphne Sheldrick puts it in her moving memoir Life, Love, and Elephants. 

Awareness of the Lasts isn’t the funeral bagpipes. It’s a temple bell. It’s a reminder of the importance of the present moment, even if it seems hum drum. Instead of turning numb to the dullness of the commonplace, we realize the truth - that every moment is actually a Last. AND a First. This exact situation, on this day, has never happened before and will never happen again. 

One of my favorite mantras

“Brutiful” is the word Glennon Doyle coined for life as the combination of beautiful and brutal. We survive the whole spectrum of Brutiful experiences by zooming in to what is alive in us and in front of us in this moment. We embody our senses. We just feel whatever is happening. We drop out of our mind, and allow these stories of “last time” and “how will I  survive this” to flow in and out.

The last time your child kisses you on the lips.

The last time you carry them in from the car late at night.

The last time they want to go to a playground.

And of course with all endings come new beginnings. 

I don’t know what these will be yet, but I imagine they will be spectacular. 

Their first step. 

Their first day of school.

Their first love. 

Even the terrible firsts come.

The first time they say they hate you.

The first time you see a boy man checking her out.

Their first heartbreak.

It’s all in the course of a day as a mom. There will be so many firsts and so many lasts and so many more firsts and lasts yet to come. We could never stop to acknowledge them all, nor would we want to. We let in the good. And we handle whatever’s there. 

“The purpose of the journey is compassion. When you have come past the pairs of opposites, you have reached compassion.” said Joseph Campbell.

Compassion

Lasts in motherhood are universal experiences. A key ingredient in compassion towards ourselves and others is the common humanity in our plight. Realizing that we are all in this together connects us. We are in the club, of every mom ever.

The last time they ever ask you to pick them up. 

The last time they sit in your lap.

The last time you read a picture book to them. 

The only thing to do is breathe and smile and take care of the next right thing. We have no control over the passing of time and constant change, it’s water flowing over our fingers. I find that keeping my hand open lets me enjoy the water rushing past more than if I tighten my fist and try to grab it. 

The cup is already broken. 

The moving van is packed, and heading out at dawn.

And that’s OK.