08/27/2025
To the parents waking up in a house that doesn’t feel quite right…
Waking up and wondering why THEY don't feel quite right.
And then remembering all over again: your big kid is gone.
You moved them onto a college campus or into an apartment. Or you said a tearful "see you later" before they headed off to boot camp or back to base. Or you hugged them goodbye at their wedding before they left for a new married life.
This is SO HARD.
I'm not going to tell you it gets better, even though bit by bit, I've seen that relieving truth for myself.
In these waking-up and re-realizing hours, I'm just going to tell you that you are not alone. Thousands of other parents are feeling this ache with you, and still more are feeling it for you.
If what you’re feeling right now feels an awful lot like grief, it’s because it is. To grieve is to assign value to something that is not the way it once was. For all that is the same—chiefly, that you still love your young adult and they still love you and you are still in relationship with each other—many things have changed. Many things are not the way they once were, and this is hard, because a lot of the ways they once were, were ways you liked! Ways you weren’t done with.
Also, as with more traditional forms of grief, you never know what’s going to hit you. I, for one, found the grocery store to be a minefield as I passed up foods I no longer needed to buy. And when I came across a food in our house that my college student ate that she’d left behind, I was undone.
Grief is not a competitive sport. You do not have to compare your grief to the grief of others and what they’ve lost, and prove it is worthy. Grief is a reflection of love. And your heart is surging with love for your newly independent child right now.
This ache—this pain that's both physical and emotional—is love talking, and when love talks about our big kids we've cherished and treasured for so long, it talks LOUD. So here’s to trusting it to fill in some of the silence and some of the stillness today.
(written by Guilty Chocoholic Mama)
