Ashley Cook Instagram – both of my sisters become empty nesters this summer. they are celebrating their boys just before they go and live life in a new way and i can hardly believe it. i don’t know where all the days went. it feels like yesterday that they both told me they were pregnant for the first time. it was the happiest news of my life to that point, i think. i wanted to be an aunt more than anything. i wanted to hold their babies and watch them grow. and i really wanted to watch my sisters become mothers. i knew it would be sweet— but it has been so much more than that. to watch them love and care and celebrate and enjoy it all has changed me. they have been so thoughtful, so present, so steady. i watched them say no when no was hard, but needed. i watched them teach each one what it is to be hardworking and helpful and covered in character. to have the gift of watching every bit of this chapter is something i will treasure forever— because they have done it all so well. exceptional in every way, they are. and the world is better for it. four kind-hearted, courageous, world-changing people are ready and moving forward. women are incredible. moms are incredible. these two are as good as they come and to watch them parent steadily, generously, faithfully for all these years— i am better for it. what a thing to see what steady love and intentional care can mean for a life. what a thing to see the way this much love for someone else can change you and soften you and strengthen you from the inside out. celebrating the boys, for sure. but also— celebrating every bit of intentional, wise, sacrificial love that you have given. so much of all of it for so long. i have never seen anyone do it better. not anyone. thank you for showing me what is to do impossibly hard, impossibly important work well.