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I have never run a race. I am not a runner. If you see me running, you should run too because something is definitely wrong. But I know a couple runners. I don’t understand them, but I know them. And (I think) I understand what drives them to get to the finish line, because I am a mother.

For decades I heard comparisons between getting your children safely to “Grown Up” as getting to the finish line. I used that comparison myself. It seemed appropriate, at the time. When passing classes during senior year seemed like too much effort, I told my children “You can’t quit now, the finish line is right there.” When a friend, with two boys in their final years of high school, decided to have another child I told her “you were almost at the finish line and you turned around and started over.” Parenting felt like this race to the end, my child being my running partner, and the goal was to cross that finish line, clearly marked by a graduation and an eighteenth birthday party.

When my oldest child crossed that line, it was an accomplishment. We were running partners, but our relationship was not great. We had struggled; we fought, sometimes tooth and nail. There were threats to give up, and bribes to keep going. But finally, we made it. We did it. It was a long, arduous race, yet we ran it all the way to the end, by golly. But I was still in the middle of that race with my other children, so I kept running.

With my middle child, it was an easy victory. My middle child is much more laid-back than my oldest, this was ground we had covered before so we didn’t have as many of the pitfalls of that first race over uncharted territory. We knew the path to take, and we ran alongside each other at a more relaxed pace. That race was a challenge but not a trial. And I was still in it, with one more child, one more race to finish.

And the day my youngest and I crossed that finish line for the last time, it was not what I expected. I expected pride, which I got in spades. My children have all grown into amazing humans. I expected relief, accomplishment, and joy. And that was there too. This phase of their lives was successfully checked off and they could move on to bigger, better things. But I did not expect the sense of loss and confusion that overshadowed this momentous moment for me.

There are things that I am glad to be done with. I will never again have to walk into Walmart, school supply list in hand, cursing because the specific brand of scissors on the list is so damn expensive. I won’t have to lie awake worried that my children will be left to their own devices on a snow day while I am still required to go to work. Parent-Teacher Conferences, report cards, lunch money are all concerns I am relieved to set aside. I wonder if runners feel this sense of relief when they reach the end of the race and can finally stop running. Do they also feel a sense of loss, knowing they will never run this race again?

On that side of the finish line, I worried if my children would make friends, get bullied, find a date to the prom, get picked last for kickball in gym class, make good choices, and wash their hands. On this side, the worries feel sharper and harder, the consequences harsher. Will they find a good job, an employer who values and appreciates them; will they meet a partner to share their life with? Will they have a warm bed and a hot meal everyday; will they (still) make good choices, and wash their hands? And what do I want my life to look like now?

For twenty five years, more than half my life, my focus had been raising my children. I dedicated my life to being a mother with more intensity than an Olympic runner training to beat a world record, because I was running that race 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for a quarter of a century. When people told me “follow your passion” I would respond by saying “I am passionate about taking care of my family.”  The day I crossed that finish line for the last time, there was no glorious sense of victory. Between one moment and the next, the purpose that kept me steady, like the bannister on steep stairs, slid out of my grasp and I was left grasping a heart full of secret grief, even though I expected triumph, to bask in the congratulations from family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances.

I was so focused on getting to the finish line that I never thought to look across it, to the other side, to see what lies beyond the ribbon stretched across the path. I never suspected that the other side of the finish line was not a destination that we would all enjoy together, but a complete, almost instant, transformation from running partner, to spectator. I didn’t expect it to hurt.