There is a very particular nostalgia in being a mom of adult children. It's not sadness because they've grown up. On the contrary. One wants to see them move forward, become independent, build a life and that they no longer need us in the same way.
But there is something deeply moving about realizing that, as they were growing up, an entire stage of our own life was also coming to an end.
It wasn't just them who stopped being children. We also stopped being that mom who carried sleeping bodies, who knew where every stocking was, who solved nightmares at three in the morning and who could fix a sadness with a hug, a band-aid or something to eat.
Maybe that's why it takes so long to get rid of certain things. We are not saving small shoes or old drawings. We are keeping traces of a woman we once were.. From a house that sounded different. Of some routines that seemed eternal at that time and that today we understand that they were so short.
Life has that beautiful cruelty: many of the times we are going to miss the most happen while we are too busy living them to notice.And then, years later, a little box appears in a closet, I recently found the little box with my children's navels, and for a second everything comes back.
A small voice. A hand inside ours. A son who needed us. And with this, also a version of us. Maybe that's why there are some things we always want to keep.
Because even if they are no longer useful for anything, they still know exactly how to take us back to that exact moment that fills our heart with nostalgia. One of my impossible dreams is to return to my children's childhood, to be able to have more presence, more love, but as it is not possible, I enjoy it as adults, I love them from freedom, I respect them, and any opportunity I have to share with them, today adults and with their own families, I live it to the fullest!!
It is also beautiful to feel protected by that little one, or little one who became a man or a woman, and to know that he loves you!!
My mom saved the part of the belly button that comes off a few weeks after birth. This is my younger brother's and mine. She put them in a little gift box, she's gone, but I left them in the same place she had them. According to his thinking, it means that the two brothers will always be together. Amen
There are christening cards, baby photography, two little strollers, vaccination cards, there is my little rocking chair and my bottle, there is my brother's lunchbox with which I went to preschool. He would have been 4 years old more or less at that time, today he is 47 years old., there are the two trays for eating, there I served food to my nephews when they were babies as they are male and female twins because a tray for each one was perfect and in particular I even have a little music box that she gave me as a child today I am over 60 years old. Enjoy it because everything has an end.
Janitze.🌷
Separator made with Canva by 
Any images in this post are taken with my iPhone 12, the Infinix pro-note 30 or with the camera eighties Rolleiflex 2.8 f, and edited by me with Canva
Translation with |DeepL