Moms Never Stop Worrying About Their Kids No Matter Their Age

“Did everything go okay?” my mom quietly whispered from her bedroom.

“Mom, you’re still awake? It’s almost midnight.” I asked, wondering why she was up so late.

“I couldn’t sleep till you got home.” She said.

One might think it’s not unusual for a mom to wait for her daughter to get home. However, that daughter is me—and I am in my early 50s, and my mom is in her early 80s!

I had traveled back to my home state for a friend’s funeral—damn cancer, but that’s another story. My friend and her family lived about 40 minutes from my hometown, so I stayed with my mom.

After my friend’s wake, several of us went out for a late dinner to share stories, laughs, and tears together.

As I quietly tiptoed up the stairs to my old childhood bedroom, now a guest room, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry when I heard my mom’s question, “Did everything go okay?” She couldn’t sleep, she explained, because she knew I hadn’t driven on the dark country back roads of my home state for a while, and well… she worried.

I am a grown woman with three teenagers, whom I drive all over the place at different times of the day and night. Yet, I’m still my mother’s daughter—I suppose I’m still her little girl in some way, too.

I sat on the edge of my mom’s bed, chatted for a few moments about the evening with a promise to talk more at breakfast, and then gave her a big hug.

I shook my head as I crept into my own bed. Do we ever stop worrying about our kids? No, dear moms, I don’t believe we ever do. From worrying if they will ever sleep through the night to worrying if they will make it home safely—wherever that home may be—moms never stop worrying. We never stop being moms.