Kimberly Hetherington

My first born daughter is getting ready for her first day at “big kid” school.

She wears an outfit she chose and put on all by herself. A long yellow flowery dress, a pale green sweater, and her favourite blue sparkly shoes.

We take a quick picture at the door. Both of my girls standing together, smiling, with their arms around each other.

We get to school and see the other parents hovering around their kids. Excitement and nerves in the air. We wait around for what feels like forever until suddenly, it’s time. All the kids are quickly filed off into their class lines. In a swirl of motion, my daughter heads up the stairs holding hands with her friend. She looks back only for a brief moment. Just enough for me to snap a picture of her.

I wait for the tears. That aching feeling that my baby girl is growing up. But they don’t come.

I drive home alone in silence. No music on. No sounds of my daughters in the back seat. And slowly, I start to feel a sense of emptiness. A sadness that doesn’t quite fit the exact criteria of sadness. Instead it feels a lot like grief. And maybe it is just that.

It’s like seeing her head off into the world without me taps into a realisation of all the changes my heart will have to endure and adjust to. That there are parts of her day that I will no longer be a part of. Little by little she is creating a life that exists outside of me.

It’s this painful realisation that loss is laced into everything. That my daughter feels like mine, but she is her own. Even if I kept her with me all the time, she is still her own person, with her own life to live.

From the very moment I held her tiny little body in my arms, I was surrendering to the unraveling that is being a mother. To the pain and joy that are so deeply intertwined when we watch them grow. To the love that is so strong it forces my scarred heart to grow and grow.

This grief tucks itself under everything in my life. It’s almost the undertone, the hue of my life.

It sounds so depressing, but in fact, it gives me such profound meaning. It allows me to treasure these precious endings and beginnings.

These moments that will continue again and again throughout my life.