Life’s Firsts and Lasts: A Mother’s Reflection

One of the most beautiful things about being a parent is witnessing firsts.

The first heartbeat you hear.

The first cry when they enter the world.

First smiles, first steps, first words.

First belly laughs.

First loves.

Those moments you look upon with pride, amazement, joy…

Each one feels like a tiny miracle.

Moments you store away carefully in your memory, knowing someday you’ll return to them.

As a mom of two boys with a six-year age gap, I’ve lived in a unique overlap of time.

While my youngest is still experiencing so many firsts, my oldest is quietly reaching some of his lasts.

The last time he asks you to read a bedtime story.

The last family vacation before college.

The last time he runs through the house like a kid.

But there is another category of firsts and lasts that no one prepares you for at all.

The ones that come with loss.

I lost my mom after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Anyone who has loved someone through Alzheimer’s understands the quiet heartbreak of it.

You lose pieces of them slowly over time—memories, conversations, little parts of who they were.

The last five years were the hardest.

But even after witnessing that gradual loss, the day she passed still blindsided me with a different king of emptiness.

The kind that only comes when someone who shaped your world is no longer physically in it.

And then life keeps moving.

Three months later, the holidays arrived.

I was standing there in the middle of Christmas with a twelve-year-old and an eighteen-year old.

One who still wanted to believe in the magic of the season.

The other home from his first year at college.

All I wanted was for them to feel joy, the laughter, the traditions.

But I was also carrying grief.

It was the first time I had to blend two completely different emotions at once: joy and heartbreak.

How do you hold space for both?

How do you celebrate when your heart feels hollow?

Your mind starts replaying the last moments you had together.

Wondering if you should have stayed longer, hugged tighter, said something more.

Eventually you realize something important.

Grief doesn’t erase love—it proves it.

My mom’s spirit lives in the lessons she gave us.

In the way we raise our children.

In the traditions we carry.

Her presence is woven in the DNA of our family.

And still…some days it hurts.

Christmas will never be the same.

That’s the honest truth.

But we will learn these new firsts.

The first holiday without her.

The first birthday we celebrate in memory.

The first time we laugh at a story about her instead of crying.

Life keeps giving us moments—firsts built on the foundation of the lasts that came before them.

The circle of life is both marvelous and bittersweet.

And somehow, we keep moving—one breath at a time.