Table for 3

The next stage in parenting – one I’m not sure you can ever fully prepare for. Maybe those with older children will get it. Is it “empty nest”? Or perhaps just the slow beginning of it.

On a recent holiday, we travelled without our eldest daughter. The ache of missing her crept in quietly at unexpected moments. None more so than when we went to a café or restaurant to eat.

“Table for 3?”
It’s such a simple, polite, routine question from the host at the door. But every time, something in me would flinch.

Because for so many years, it’s always been 4.
The four of us. A full table. The Hinton’s – my little world in balance. Every time I instinctively opened my mouth to correct them, to say, “No, it’s 4”… I had to swallow the words. Because she wasn’t there.

She’s off chasing the sun and her own dreams working in Spain. Living her life, with all the joy, adventure, and freedom a young woman her age deserves. And I’m proud, endlessly proud – that she’s strong, brave, confident, and blooming out in the world. But pride sits next to a dull ache.

There’s an ache in those small moments.
At tables with one empty chair.
In conversations where her laughter would’ve joined in.
In all the little decisions we made – where to explore, where to eat, the after dinner activities, choices that for years had been a vote of four.

Don’t get me wrong, we had the most amazing time. The three of us made new memories and strengthened our bonds. But her absence travelled with us as a quiet, constant flicker. A reminder that time moves forward, that our children grow, that family love stretches further than any distance that separates us.

And maybe that’s what this stage of life teaches us: that parenting is a constant letting go. From their first steps to their first sleepover, from high school leavers to airports and their travels abroad, every stage is a shift, a stretch, an expansion of love. We raise them to grow wings. And then we feel the sting when they use them.

So we take the table for 3. We order, we reflect on the day, we cheers to our girl who isn’t sitting with us but is never far from our hearts.

Love expands, it evolves, it grows with them, wherever they go.

But a mum never stops noticing that empty seat. And maybe that’s okay. Because in noticing, we honour the depth of our love. And we remind ourselves that the ache is simply love with nowhere to sit.

Claire.