Not the End of the Story: Tara on Weaning

I’ll tell you, I still get this phantom prickly letdown feeling sometimes, out of the blue (and it’s been almost three years). But don’t worry, Kathleen, I promise you they need you like crazy long after nursing. And I mean long after. Even now, I’ve got a thirteen year old upstairs who will definitely try to coax me into snuggling before I crawl into my own bed. (She’d barely let me hug her in front of school in broad daylight…but still…)
This makes me ache because I still feel the tearing away from when they stopped nursing but I know that it’s not the end of the story.
It’s all hard, and it’s all really wonderful.

This piece originally appeared as a comment on Mama, Interrupted.