There are exactly two weeks left of school runs.
My youngest gets her license in June, and with it, her independence AND mine. Next fall she’ll drive herself to school, and just like that, twenty-one years of being the family chauffeur will simply close.
I am, by my own admission, Type A. (I prefer Type A Plus — it feels more accurate.) I like knowing things. I like timelines and calendars and the particular satisfaction of a plan. So in some ways, this ending is a gift. I can see it coming. There’s a date on it. I can be present for these last few weeks of car line and curbside drop-offs and half-awake morning small talk. I can prepare myself, which, if you know me, is basically my love language.
But here’s the thing about motherhood that no planner can fix.
Most of the last times don’t announce themselves.
There was a last time I laid in bed next to one of my kids while they drifted off to sleep, their breathing going slow and even while I stared at the ceiling, pretending I wasn’t about to fall asleep myself while mentally running through everything still on my to-do list. I didn’t know it was the last time. I just got up, snuck out the door, and went to do the dishes.
There was a last time I picked one of them up and carried them — really carried them, their whole weight against my hip like it was nothing. I didn’t know they’d never ask to be carried again. I just put them down and kept moving, left to wonder in the future when that even happened.
There was a last time I reached for their hand before crossing the street. A reflex I’d had for years — that automatic arm-reach, the little fingers wrapping around mine without thinking. And then one day they were old enough, and steady enough, and confident enough, and they just… crossed. And I stood there for a second, hand at my side, and I thought oh, and then I thought okay, and then I smiled and crossed too, not knowing, even then, that it was the last time.
I didn’t record any of it. I wasn’t watching for it. Time doesn’t usually give you a flashing neon sign that says this is the last one, pay attention.
Which is why I’m paying attention now.
These last few weeks of morning drives — the ones where I’m half-caffeinated and she’s half-awake and we talk about nothing and everything — they’re going on the list. The good list. The one I’m consciously building so that when the door closes, I’ll know I was there for it.
And the afternoon pickups, where I’m reading her mood like a precise scientific instrument. Some days she tumbles into the car bright and chatty, full of everything that happened. Other days she’s tired and grouchy and finds my mere existence to be one more frustration. But I’m soaking up both.
When my kids were small and taking four tiny humans to the grocery store was a Herculean feat, I remember the older women stopping to say things like, “Oh, are they all yours?” and “My, you have so many helpers,” and the absolute worst: “Don’t blink, Mom, because someday you’ll wish for this.” I used to come home and tell my husband that if I ever became that woman — the one dispensing unsolicited wisdom to a frazzled mother wrestling a baby while arguing with a four-year-old about fruit snacks while the two- and three-year-old stage a produce aisle war — he had full permission to stop me.
It’s just not what you want to hear in the moment.
But I did try to hold onto the reminder: the days are long, but the years are short. And it is so, so true — just not something that can be known until it’s lived. Which is both the magic and the pain of real life.
She’ll get her license. She’ll drive herself. She’ll love it — and honestly? So will I, at least a little. Because watching your kids become capable and independent is the whole point, even when it rearranges everything and leaves a little hollow in its wake.
So I’m going to keep reaching for the music a little longer. Asking about her day. Watching the way the afternoon sun hits her on the passenger side of the car. Hearing the high school tea while it’s still hot.
I know it’s the last time. And this time, I’m writing it down.