As a working mom, the first lunches I packed for my infant daughter were bottles of breastmilk collected on calls with men asking “does anyone else hear that sound?” as the pump gathered my milk, or while oblivious colleagues knocked on my office door asking if they could come in for a minute. For a few glorious years, daycare provided meals, but once my daughter turned four, packing her lunch became my daily routine.

The first lunchboxes required containers that her small hands could open and close on her own. Those were the school rules. I wanted them to be BPA free, because back then we were all panicked about the harmful effects of BPA. They were great little plastic containers and we still use them. You can see the pink one in her lunch I packed today. Of course, now I’m realizing, we are probably polluting her body with microplastics, the worry of today. No matter how hard you try as a parent, eventually you’ll get it wrong.

I have packed thousands of lunches for my only child. Always with the goal of a nutritious, tasty, balanced meal, but sometimes more goldfish crackers and applesauce than ideal. My mom taught my brother to pack his own lunch in kindergarten, but I never made that parental leap. Every weekday morning I rolled out of bed, fed the cats, and made a lunch. Every August we did the lunchbox evaluation – could it make it one more year, or was that crusty glop in the corner mold? Lunches provided a rhythm to childhood’s passing days and years.

Now there’s only one lunch left. She has one more day of work this summer and then the lunchbox will be retired. It’s funny how the big events – graduation, last basketball game – don’t really get to me. Those involve coordinating with family and friends. They get marked on a calendar with anticipation. But the quiet unexpected milestones provide a moment to reminise, to think about how her life is changing, how my life is changing, and maybe even cry a little in solitude.

I will miss being able to put notes in her lunch. It was a way to acknowledge big days, comfort during hard times, or share a corny joke. I will miss the clues her lunch provided about her life. Why wasn’t she eating dessert anymore? Were desserts embarassing? Was there some anti-candy Tik Tok trend? I will miss knowing that at least once a day my kid would have food she liked provided to her with time set aside to eat. There is a chance my kid will forget to eat in college or find the food so unappetizing that her freshman 15 will be a negative number, but that’s her responsibilty now.

Tomorrow is it. Another end to parenthood. Another passing of the torch to my child. No more “Mom! I need to leave now!” fights while I franically try to find a vegetable or a fruit to pack. No more lost yogurt scissors, which we packed for years so she could open her own yogurt tubes. No more forgotten containers of strawberries left to mold over the weekend. Every transition is sad and good. Provides growth and a loss. I’m grateful that today gave me a quiet moment to remember, laugh, and cry. It was a good parental lunch run.