When After School Snacks Stop
“Tia, will you play with me?”
I never knew just how much that question would end up breaking my heart, the many times I’ve heard it before.
My family camps at San Simeon often and my brother routinely walks the shore to watch the sunset. One evening I joined him with my husband and my thirteen-year-old niece, the child who made me a Tia.
I walked on the right side of my husband while my niece and brother walked several feet ahead of us, each pair in their own conversation. One moment, I was perfectly content. Then my niece turned around and stunned me when she asked,
“Tia, when we find a place to sit, will you play with me?”
“Of course,” I answered automatically.
She turned back around and kept talking to my brother. My husband continued talking to me, but I wasn’t listening anymore.
I was crying.
He looked over, startled, and asked if I was okay.
I told him, “That’s the last time she’ll ever ask me that.” And I knew it to be true.
Over a year later, we all watched her walk across the stage graduating eighth grade. And we also watched how quickly it all goes by.
Something in me felt called to write this, almost immediately after her graduation a couple of days ago. What I realized is that life changes so gradually that we hardly notice it happening. Childhood leaves quietly. One ordinary day at a time until something small reveals an entire chapter has closed:
The last time your child asks you to play with them.
Just like that, they’re focused on love interests, studies, parties, friends, appearances, and building a future of their own.
No more playing cars.
No more Barbies.
No more playing pretend.
I can’t pinpoint the last time she ran toward me with complete excitement, wrapped herself around my legs because she was much shorter, and hugged me just because I walked through the door. It wasn’t a monumental moment when it stopped, I only just realized it had.
Now she’s taller than me.
And I’m not even a mother, but that day — and especially after graduation — I began to understand the ache parents must carry. The realization that the little version of someone does not disappear all at once. It fades slowly, while you are busy living beside it. And you can only pray that life gives you the allowance and awareness to be present every moment of their childhood. Because even as an aunt, even as a Tia, I realized I hadn’t always been fully present either. And those chances I had are gone. I cannot redeem them. And in my mourning of those moments passed, I ask,
Do I still matter to her the way I used to?
Do you still matter to your child the way you used to?
Yes. But differently.
As they enter this new almost-adult chapter, we enter a new chapter too. When the world breaks their heart, when the pressures of life become heavier than they expected, when adulthood feels scary and too large to walk alone, they will still need us.
Our children may stop asking us to play with them, but one day they may ask,
“Can I hide from the world with you?”
I wrote this essay after many tears. I mourn the ending chapters of someone I still see growing. The little girl who needed me to make her a snack, brush her hair, endlessly build a fort in the living room and play hot lava with dolls. I miss the child who loved to have cartoons on in the background, to sing to Disney songs, and to live in her princess dresses all day and night. It ends all too quickly and that just sits heavy on my heart. I dedicate this to you, Skylar. Your Tia loves you more than you’ll ever know. Here for you always.
