Full Circle Moments

There’s a certain weight that comes with watching your child parent—especially when they reach the same age you were when you were trying to hold it all together.

My oldest daughter (33) is now the age I was when I had two toddlers, a teenager, and a husband with a terminal illness, pulling at me in every direction. I see her now, caring for her children, and I can’t help but remember my own chaos, my own lessons, my own growth.

She has one fussing toddler right now, but the exhaustion, the overwhelm, the trying-to-keep-it-all-together, those parts feel familiar. And while I know she’s doing her best, I also know how hard it is to show up fully when you’re carrying pain and just trying to survive.

With her first baby, she may have missed some things, not out of neglect, but because she was hurting. I saw it then. I see it now. And I don’t say it with judgment, only with understanding. Because I’ve been there.

But now, grown. She’s learned. And this baby, “Fuss,” she’s special. Just like my youngest, Syd. There’s something about the youngest, maybe it’s that they come into our lives when we’re wiser, more rooted, more ready to do better. They’re our quiet reminder that we can change. We can break cycles. We can show up differently.

Brooklyn and Sydney, our two youngest girls, hold a sacred place in our legacy. Even their names are stitched with meaning. They are maps. Markers. They speak to places these girls may one day stand in and make a difference.

My hope is simple: that there is no more struggle. That we’ve done the hard work so they don’t have to carry as much. That our pain has paved a smoother path. That love, not survival, guides their way.

This is the legacy I dream of: daughters who mother from a place of healing, not harm. And granddaughters who know their names mean something.

We’re still writing the story. But I’m proud of the women we are becoming.