Welcome to Life After Lil

We put so much emphasis on milestones. Graduation photos lined up in neat rows on the mantel, the first day of a new job, the car packed to the brim and pulling out of the driveway. These are the moments we mark and celebrate, the big posts along the road. But I’m learning that it’s not only the milestones that shape us. It’s the pause between them — this new empty nest season, the strange, unsettled space where one chapter has closed but the next hasn’t fully begun. Coping With an Empty Nest Pause My son has been away at grad school for just a week, and yes, I may have texted him every single day. My daughter left to visit her boyfriend before starting her first nursing job out of state — a preview of the leave-taking that’s coming. At home, it’s just my husband and me. He has football season to keep him happy; I make plans with friends. We’re learning to fill our days differently, to shift our caregiving roles into something else. Soon we’ll go camping. In a few months, I’ll head to ...

Dropping My Son Off: Learning to Support Without Fixing We drove six hours to drop my son off at grad school. The weekend was filled with the usual rituals—Target runs, Trader Joe’s bags, setting up his new life. But beneath it all, he carried disappointment from an interview he felt hadn’t gone well. As a parent, I wanted to swoop in and fix it. But adult children don’t need rescuing; they need reminding. Reminding that one moment doesn’t define them. That they already carry the strength they need. My role now is to stand beside, not in front. The Angel Wings in Los Angeles In the middle of all this, I found myself standing before a pair of towering bronze angel wings in Los Angeles. I stepped into them for a photo, but what I really felt was Lil—her own unseen wings wrapped around me. Those wings reminded me: she is still here. Protecting, guiding, carrying us through transitions she never got to see but is still part of. Emotional Support Woven Through Family Back home, support took...

  Grief comes in waves.  Some weeks, the tide feels relentless, crashing one after another before I can catch my breath. If you’re navigating grief—whether from losing a child, caring for a loved one with cancer, or both—know that you are not alone. Facing a Parent’s Cancer Diagnosis This week, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer for the third time. She hasn’t even finished the five-year course of tamoxifen from her last round—the one that ended with her mastectomy. We don’t yet know what this new diagnosis will mean, but the word cancer alone is enough to pull me under. Waves of Memory and Loss The first wave is memory. I can’t help but flash back to my father’s decline in 2023: prostate cancer layered on top of brain aneurysms that left him blind, adding to a long list of ailments he had carried for years. His decline came after his own father—my grandfather—passed, whose death from the same cancer was swift and peaceful. Together, these losses cast a shadow I’m stil...

Intro Life after caregiving is something people don’t often talk about. For 25 years, my life was centered around my daughter—every hour of every day shaped by her needs. When she passed, I was left grieving not only her but also the rhythm of caregiving that had defined me for so long. Suddenly, there was no one who needed me 24/7. The silence was overwhelming. Over time, though, I’ve learned that living with loss also means finding ways to fill the quiet, to honor her memory while slowly discovering who I am beyond caregiving. The Rhythm of Caregiving Mornings A typical day with my daughter began around 5 or 6 a.m. with her calling, “Mommy! Daddy!”—pulling me out of a deep sleep. I’d stumble into her room, bleary-eyed, still half in a dream, and there she’d be: arms reaching out, her sweet voice chirping, “Hi Mommy!” That hug always came first, and it made the early start bearable. Who could stay grumpy after a greeting like that? Once she was wrapped in her robe and slippers, she wa...