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To the Mom of a High School Senior
I remember this year. And I wish I could show you what comes next.
I remember.
I remember the last first day of school.
The obligatory picture on the front porch—although by senior year, getting everyone to cooperate with the picture may have required a small negotiation.
I remember the last football games.
The last pep rallies.
The last Homecoming.
The last school pictures.
The last time filling out some form I’d filled out approximately 147 times before.
And suddenly, everything seemed to have the word last attached to it.
Maybe you’re there right now.
You’re looking at this child you’ve raised and realizing that the calendar has somehow moved much faster than you gave it permission to.
Senior year has arrived.
And everyone is excited.
You are too.
Mostly.
But there’s something about being the mom of a senior that nobody quite prepares you for.
You are celebrating the future while quietly grieving the end of something you have loved very much.
I know.
I’ve done this four times.
And now, all four of those high school seniors are college graduates.
They’re grown.
They’re working.
They’re building careers and lives of their own.
And from where I’m standing now, I wish I could reach back through time and tell my senior-year-mom self a few things.
Mostly this:
There is so much good stuff still ahead.
Yes, There Will Be Lasts
You will notice them.
Some will sneak up on you.
You’ll be sitting in the bleachers at a football game and suddenly think:
Wait. Is this the last one?
You’ll watch them walk into school and remember the little person you once walked into kindergarten.
You’ll order the cap and gown.
You’ll address graduation announcements.
You’ll watch them stand with friends they’ve known since elementary school and realize that these kids are about to scatter in a dozen different directions.
And graduation day will come.
There will be pictures.
So many pictures.
You’ll straighten the gown.
You’ll probably say:
“Let me get just one more.”
It will not be just one more.
Take them anyway.
But Here’s What I Didn’t Fully Understand Yet
While you’re experiencing all of those lasts, you can’t see all of the firsts waiting just around the corner.
And there are so many.
The first college acceptance.
The first time they say:
“I think this might be the one.”
The first dorm assignment.
The first roommate.
The first trip to buy entirely too many things for a room approximately the size of a large closet.
The first move-in day.
Oh, move-in day.
You will somehow fit bedding, towels, storage bins, clothes, lamps, shoes, snacks, school supplies and seventeen things from Target that nobody actually needs into your car.
Then you’ll carry all of it up several flights of stairs.
Possibly in August.
And you will make that little room a home.
You’ll put the sheets on the bed.
Arrange the pillows.
Find a place for the laundry basket.
You’ll probably make one last trip to the store because apparently no human being has ever successfully moved into a dorm without discovering they forgot something.
And eventually…
there will be nothing left to organize.
That’s when it gets real.
Then You Drive Home
This part is strange.
You spend 18 years preparing a child to become independent.
And then they do.
The nerve.
You drive away from campus and their room at home is suddenly very quiet.
You may cry.
You may not.
You may cry three days later while walking past their favorite cereal at the grocery store.
There are no rules for this.
But here’s something I wish every mom could know on that drive home:
This isn’t the end of your relationship.
It’s the beginning of a new one.
Because Then the Phone Calls Start
Some will be important.
Some will absolutely not.
“How do I wash this?”
“Where’s my insurance card?”
“Do you know my Social Security number?”
“Can you look at this email before I send it?”
“What does ‘simmer’ mean?”
And occasionally:
“Mom?”
You’ll hear it in their voice.
Something is wrong.
A friendship.
A grade.
Homesickness.
A roommate problem.
A broken heart.
And you’ll discover that parenting an adult child is different.
You can’t always fix it.
You’re not supposed to.
But you can still be home base.
And that is a pretty wonderful job.
You’ll Get to Watch Their World Get Bigger
This was one of my favorite parts.
There were Greek bid days.
New friends.
Roommates.
College traditions.
Parents weekends.
Football games.
Late-night study sessions I thankfully didn’t know about until much later.
There were new interests.
New ideas.
New confidence.
Then came apartments.
Apartment leases.
Furniture acquired from questionable sources.
First kitchens.
Internships.
Interviews.
Jobs.
And slowly, almost without realizing it, I stopped seeing only the child I’d raised.
I started seeing the adult they were becoming.
That is an extraordinary thing to witness.
There Will Be Hard Parts Too
College isn’t four years of adorable dorm rooms and football Saturdays.
There may be a class they struggle with.
A friendship that ends.
A roommate who drives them crazy.
A major that changes.
An internship they don’t get.
A semester that doesn’t go according to plan.
A phone call that makes your heart hurt.
There may be moments when you desperately want to get in the car, drive to campus and fix everything.
Sometimes you’ll need to help.
Sometimes the greatest help you can give is simply:
“I know you’ll figure this out.”
And then they do.
Not always perfectly.
But little by little.
They do.
And One Day You’ll Notice Something
The calls change.
Instead of:
“What should I do?”
you start hearing:
“Here’s what I think I’m going to do.”
That’s when you realize something has shifted.
They’re not asking you to run their life.
They’re inviting you into it.
There is a difference.
And it’s lovely.
Then Somehow, There’s Another Cap and Gown
I know.
You can’t imagine that yet.
You’re still trying to get through senior pictures.
But trust me.
There will come a day when you’re sitting in another auditorium or stadium.
There will be another cap.
Another gown.
Another name called.
And that 18-year-old you dropped off at the dorm will walk across a stage as a college graduate.
Then comes another whole collection of firsts.
The first real job.
The first real paycheck.
The first professional wardrobe.
The first apartment that isn’t student housing.
The first career decision.
The first time they call to tell you something wonderful happened at work.
And eventually you find yourself sitting across from this grown person thinking:
Look at you.
Look at this life you’re building.
That’s the Part I Wish I Could Show You
If you’re the mom of a senior right now, you can see graduation coming.
You can see the empty bedroom.
You can see the goodbye.
What you can’t see yet is everything on the other side.
I can.
I’ve been lucky enough to watch it four times.
And I can tell you:
It’s wonderful over here.
Different.
But wonderful.
You don’t stop being their mom when they leave home.
You get to know them in a completely new way.
You get to meet the adult who was hiding inside that kid all along.
You get to watch them discover what they’re good at.
You get to see them make choices you wouldn’t have made—and sometimes discover they were right.
You get to watch them build friendships you didn’t arrange.
Solve problems you didn’t fix.
Find jobs you didn’t choose.
Create lives that belong entirely to them.
And you get the extraordinary privilege of standing nearby and thinking:
I knew you when.
So, Mom, Enjoy This Year
Go to the football game.
Take the picture.
Order the ridiculous senior-year thing.
Sit in the bleachers.
Go to the pep rally if they’ll let you.
Listen when they’re excited about college.
Listen when they’re scared.
Let them change their mind.
Take the college trip.
Buy the sweatshirt.
Celebrate the acceptance.
Sit with them through the rejection.
Take too many graduation pictures.
And every once in a while, when you’re tempted to become sad about another last, remind yourself:
There is a first coming.
You just can’t see it yet.
One Last Thing
There was a time when I thought launching my children meant preparing myself to let them go.
I don’t think of it quite that way anymore.
We don’t really let them go.
The relationship just stretches.
Across dorm rooms.
College campuses.
Apartments.
Jobs.
Cities.
Careers.
And grown-up lives.
They still come home.
They still call.
They still need their mom sometimes.
Just differently.
And one of the sweetest surprises of this whole parenting journey is discovering that the other side of raising children isn’t simply an empty nest.
It’s a front-row seat to the lives they build.
So if your heart feels a little tender this senior year, that’s okay.
Notice the lasts.
Treasure them.
Take the pictures.
But don’t spend so much time mourning what’s ending that you miss the excitement of what’s beginning.
I’ve seen the other side.
And Mom?