For the Last Time

Dearest Rachel –

There’s a saying that has made its way around the internet. It doesn’t appear to be a quote, per se; probably because it hasn’t ever been structured in a particularly pithy manner so as to make it properly quotable. But that doesn’t make the sentiment any less poignant.

It states that, there will come a day when you pick up your child, and put them down for the very last time, and neither of you will realize it until long after that moment has passed. It might even be that neither of you will even remember that moment, whether or not you recognize that time has come. “Gosh, when did I last pick you up? It’s been ages, hasn’t it?” “Yeah, Dad… and I wouldn’t advise you to try anything like that now, either.”

In the back of our minds, we all understand that we are mortal, as loathe as we are to admit it. Our bodies remind us of this as we age; things don’t work as well as they did once upon a time. We may do things to try to rejuvenate them – and they may even work for a length of time – but inexorably, we get older, and die. So we can kind of accept, in the same grudging way, the fact that everything we do, we will one day do for the last time.

Of course, there’s a difference between doing something for the last time with someone, as opposed to actually doing something for the very last time. While I acknowledge that I have taken my last trip with you (and, for your ‘Aunt’ Ruth’s sake, I am glad you insisted on going, and we got the chance to do so before the lockdowns went into effect), I’ve done a fair amount of traveling since then (and certainly hope to do more in the near and more remote future). And, of course, there are other things we did together that I’d like to believe I’ve not done for the last time, but finding someone for whom I might have similar feelings (and who would put as much faith in me as you did) is proving to be… challenging.

It’s that mutual interaction that makes the change in dynamic between parent and child that much more poignant, I suppose. It’s not that we die, as such (though there is that, in too many cases; face it, even one child losing a parent in childhood is too many, and we all know it’s more commonplace than that), as much as the moment passes for one or the other participants. A child may want to be held, but the parent is unavailable or unable to do so due to various constraints – and not always because they don’t necessarily want to, although I’m sure that happens quite frequently. Likewise, there comes a time when a parent may want to, only to be rebuffed by the child. And of course, there comes a point in time when the child is just too big for that sort of thing – sometimes in the child’s own eyes (“Aw, Mom! Cut it out! That’s for little kids!”), sometimes quite literally.

There are, of course, those that try to defy that sort of thing. You probably remember Old Joe, who would occasionally bike over to church back in the day from his home in the city. A retired construction worker, and somewhat mentally challenged, he would greet us with great enthusiasm, including a bear hug that inevitably turned into a deadlift on his part (which you never turned down, to my knowledge, but Daniel and I would occasionally, for his own sake – although I think that, more than once, he even tried to lift Kevin, just to prove he could). Nowadays, I imagine he might bike to the campus we have in the Portage Park neighborhood of the city proper; if he still does attend, Daniel and I are not likely to see him again because of the different campuses we attend, so in a certain way, the axiom still holds true here.

We have probably long since gotten our last hug from Old Joe, no matter how hard he tried to stave that moment off. Now that I think about it, I wonder how many people allow him to do that to them at all.

And that’s what gives this moment a particular sadness that little else can match. I was going to bemoan the fact that I know when you and I last came together as husband and wife (January 16, 2021), and how I really don’t want that to have been my last time, too (but there’s so much more to that activity than the activity, after all), but it isn’t in the same category as this.

It’s one thing when you stop doing a mutual activity because one of the participants has died; it’s something else entirely when both of you have simply… moved on. It’s not as if it couldn’t be done; I could pick Daniel up, just like Old Joe used to do, and probably with more ease than I used to, now that I’ve built up some muscle over the course of the past year. But it would still be awkward, and Daniel wouldn’t feel comfortable in such an embrace. Maybe more so with me than with Old Joe, but it still wouldn’t be worth the effort of trying. And it’s not as if I would need to do so in order for him to know I love him; indeed, he’d probably consider it more loving if I were to refrain from attempting such a maneuver. But still, the moment has passed. I don’t recall when it was that it last happened, but I know it won’t again. And I don’t know why – or maybe I’ve just explained why – but that makes me feel just a little sad about it.

In any event, honey, keep an eye on both of us, and wish us luck. We’re going to need it.