They see them waving goodbye through the car window, two aging parents framed in the soft light of morning. Their hands rise slowly, trembling enough to break a heart in two. On the other side of this farewell, the youngest child stands ready to cross the ocean, eyes bright with hope, unaware of the storm of emotions left behind.
It has been a week of unraveling. The mother, Becky, had told herself she would hold it together. She packed her daughter’s bags, booked the flight, and made the lists. But the moment they touched down in the Netherlands, reality came undone. The college didn’t offer housing after all. What was supposed to be a clean transition into a new life turned into a scramble for apartments and a short stay in a cramped hostel. Becky tried to stay calm, but she broke down in the small bathroom of their Chinatown hotel in The Hague. The mirror fogged with her breath as she whispered, “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.”
Before they left home, the family gathered for one last Sunday breakfast. The table was crowded with chatter and clinking silverware, a familiar chaos. Her aging parents sat side by side, patient but weary. The restaurant forgot their order, so everyone else ate first. Her mother pushed her food around the plate, fingers tracing syrup through powdered sugar. Someone placed a fork in her hand, but it slipped back onto the table. Becky’s sister tried coaxing her to eat, and when that failed, Becky leaned in with the kind of humor that’s half love and half desperation. “Come on, Mom,” she said softly, “just one bite for me.” It was the sort of moment that quietly breaks you—watching a parent fade in small ways while watching a child begin her own life. Becky saw the reflection of both directions at once — one generation needing her to stay, the other asking her to let go.
After breakfast, Emily walked to her grandparents’ home. She wanted to hug them in their doorway, to leave them with something solid before crossing the ocean. Her grandfather smiled with that familiar twinkle that said, “I’ll be fine,” though everyone knew things were changing. Her grandmother, lost somewhere between clarity and confusion, smiled too, but it was distant, dreamy. When Becky and Emily drove away, they looked back to see them waving goodbye. The image stayed burned into Becky’s heart: two figures framed in the window, fading smaller and smaller until they were only a memory. At the airport, the rain came. The sky hung low and gray, as if it understood what was happening. Becky watched her youngest child check in, all confidence and promise, while her heart cracked quietly open. On the plane ride home, she began to write — her way of breathing again.
She called it “My Last Child.” She wrote about when the plane lifted off, how the runway lights blurred together through tears, how it felt like they were driving straight into the clouds. She wondered why she had shown her daughter the world when letting her go into it hurt deeply. She asked herself if courage was worth the cost of missing someone this much.
But then, as the plane climbed higher, she began to understand. Life was a collection of letting go, one season at a time. It wasn’t the end; it was an unfolding. Her youngest child crossing the ocean wasn’t leaving her behind; she was carrying her love, stitched into her courage, tucked into her laughter.
When Becky closed her notebook, the clouds outside had thinned. A sliver of light broke through, soft and golden. She thought again of her parents waving goodbye, of her daughter’s small figure walking toward her future. She realized love was both the ache and the answer, the space between holding on and letting go. And for that moment, watching the horizon, she allowed herself to breathe.
