When Was the Last Time?
The last time I took a run I didn’t know it. I’m talking about a proper run sustained for more than two miles. I ran last summer for about one block and down my driveway just to feel a breeze wash across my face and to dodge the raindrops as I misjudged the storm as it blew in too quickly.
But the last real run? I can’t recall it, but had I known it was my last time on earth that I would smile and lean into my breathing cadence, would I savor the memory now?
What about last cartwheels? Can I still do one? Should I?
The last kiss from the person before the one I married? The last time I played with a Barbie doll. The last time I spoke with my aunt.
We all have lasts. High school graduation is a marker of the end. People tried to tell us it was a beginning, since the word, commencement, means a beginning. Except all of us sitting through the long ceremony knew it was the last time we would be high schoolers. We would never again walk the halls of our school, serve detention while friends laughed at us through the office window, just eating french fries for lunch again or sing in choir with friends and frenemies. We knew it was a celebration of the end; of the last day in school.
The older I get the more I look forward, because I sense the lasts piling up and maybe I don’t want to think about them strewn behind me. Maybe straining to glimpse my future is easier than turning around and seeing quite clearly all my lasts.
Do you want to collect them in your hands until they fill to overflowing?
If you knew that was the last time you’d ever see her what would you change? Anything? One thing?
If you knew you’d never truly play on a swing or in a treehouse as a child again, would you savor the moment? Would it change our lasts to know they were exactly that?
We’re not meant to know. If we knew what lay around the fog-shrouded path strewn before us, we’d still look ahead with hardly a glance as our last shift as a waitress ended. The last time we rode a bike to go to a friend’s house, because after that cars and driver’s licenses would change our lives. We would still yearn for the freedom of a pair of car keys, and we might not look at the bike that once carried so much promise.
The last time I fed my last baby a bottle. The last day before each child started school. Don’t you see that we take photos of our kids as they begin a new school year, rather than taking a pic of them on their last true day of summer. Not the day before school begins, because I always had a bit of nervousness at starting a new year. I’m talking about a photo of the last day and full night of summer. Wouldn’t those images be so very telling?
We want to know if this is our last visit to see mom. If this might be the last day we’ll ever say, “Have a great day!” to our husbands/partners/family. Our last great day with the dog. The last time we’ll look in the mirror and not feel old.
I think we’re fooling oursleves. At least, I fool myself. We can’t know, because that changes the whole way life works. We’re born and it begins. Time. It stretches out ahead of us, and we mark birthdays, new braces, weddings, new jobs, and new houses, and we keep moving along the time continuum, and it never stops until we stop. I don’t want to know on which day I’ll die. I don’t. Because I won’t have anymore moments waiting for me here. Sure, I believe I’ll exist somewhere else, but I’ll never be me here on earth. My body will be done holding me inside (and with my health issues I do look forward to that release), but I wonder if I’ll look back?
Do we watch a reel of sorts after our lives are done? Do we just see the highlights, or do we forget?
I did know one last which brings me to tears to this day. My youngest moved out and into a dorm at college, and I wouldn’t dream of crying in front of him as I reassured him he had this. But I came home to see his basketball lying in the grass next to the basketball goal, as if he would be out soon to take shots. Only I knew he wasn’t. Those days were really gone for good. And I cried.
Sure, he’d be home for his summer job, but that meant 50 hour work weeks and hanging out with friends, so the days of idly standing around and shooting buckets with me were completed. It gutted me, but I moved on. I suppose not knowing the lasts in our lives is the better way.
We collect lasts all along the way. Last day of crawling. Last day of warm weather. The last day of being healthy. We pile up a lot of lasts along our lives, and maybe that’s the beauty of it. The more lasts we collect, the fuller our lives have been, and we strain forward toward more firsts.
Maybe life is one big Commencement Ceremony. We continually graduate. From student to career. From myself to mom (that change rocked my world). From living in a tiny two bedroom home to this one by the cliffs and creek.
I will try a cartwheel as soon as it warms up, because I’m not ready to be done with that. Not yet. But I think I have run my last race, and even though I don’t recall my last day of running, it’s okay. I’ll bet I enjoyed it and went a little too far.
Enjoy those lasts. The thing is, you just won’t know it. And a life full of lasts is a well-lived life. Keep learning. Keep moving. Don’t stop. Let the lasts pile up. That just might be the mark of a life well lived.
