Oh Tyler, I’m so sorry you’ve suffered such heartbreaking losses.
I know that I am blessed that I don’t have my own version to tell.
The people I’ve lost, I knew the loss was coming. Long illnesses with quick ends, as is so often the way.
The goodbye I didn’t get to say was to my dear ginger boy cat who died very suddenly and inexplicably at just 7 years of age. If I’d known when I left for work that day that I’d end my day at the vet sobbing into his soft fur, I would have stayed home.
I’d have stayed home for more time with him, and to be there with my husband when he found him and raced him to the vet.
Thank you for this Kit. Loss is part of it, I understand, but oof, sometimes they really do sting. For the loss of Your little fur child, I am so sorry for this. All the would haves eat away, don't they?
I'm having to ask for references for all my different universes. Because my current one burnt out.
The age of adulthood, essentially, is 18.
Imagine nearly being a child of nearly 39. And, being the dying star of democracy delivery. They've birthed a grown-up (Zeus & Athena, I'm sure you've inferred, has had to unravel in so many of my connections this last year).
You & Kevin made it a tree house & not a cage. Cadences are my jam, ya know?
The late Kerry Greenwood (our sneaky secret phenomenal Australian Historian) had Phryne sing as she methodically tapped a casket full of fluoro paint at regular intervals --> to guide an overhead plane to a safe nearby landing strip. Book Two, I think.
If you layer & back yourself & trust all the moving parts (the yield to the process is such a hard thing for me)? It feels like it moves. Ya know?
I told a boy I lived in liner notes, and pockets of notes. Like the big crescendo in Born to Run (on a treadmill, interval training) & that rush before Bruce yells 1-2-3-4 is the Moment. When you wait for the air to take you. And, for those moments & that descent? You can fly.
Everything works & nothing hurts. And you & the music & your feet & your hummingbird heart is flying.
Oh Joanne, one can hear the mist of the babbling brook… or the flowing foot of a sonnet spoken from Windsor … and sometimes the crashing clatter of a lightning strike in the adjacent near dead woodlands. But nothing is more right with world as to when TKG pairs his voice with tensiled typewriter tales. (Edited for correct initials… lol)
Kevin this felt like the exhalation of one big breath, and the words that fluttered inside it, and I loved every moment of it. Thank you for your artistry.
My unexpected last was my stinker of a cat Max who was really the definition of cat and then some—I loved him so much but he had a terrible attitude so I had a terrible attitude back. One day we came back from the store and found him and it altered me for life. I told a friend that from that point on I was always going to tell people just how much I loved them like he did (because he head bonked you if he loved you) and over time it’s caused me to change how I treat my pets—as I realized I was acting with a bad attitude I said a prayer for max and let it go, no matter the annoyance from the pet—they can’t help it and we certainly can’t communicate it. So over time I’ve come to love the hell out of them no matter what—telling them, showing them—people too—because you never know when that head bonk might be your last.
Agh, pet loss is such a different beast. Such a different different beast indeed. I am so sorry for yours. I hope that with time, even more and more time, the healing comes.
My recent last was the last hug I gave someone I dearly love. Neither of us knew it would be the last time, but she hugged me differently that time as if she subconsciously knew something might be about to change between us…a hug completely chosen by her and behind it an expression of a love that was even deeper than before. Though we have spoken twice since then (and those conversations were some of the most difficult and raw and devastating of my life as she announced she was walking away from our relationship), I will never forget that last hug that was “different.” The universe works in mysterious ways. Sometimes you get endings wrapped up in beautiful packages, sometimes not, and sometimes an in between.
I wonder sometimes, if we all subconsciously just "know," and when we do, it changes the way we feel. The way we hold. I wonder this often. I think, most of our lasts are something in between, as you so perfectly said.
When my daughter was almost two, I had a failed miscarriage that I needed a D&C for. Something about that experience or the anesthesia or I don’t know what dropped me into the world of my childhood trauma and reawakened the anxiety and depression from my younger years. I miss what marriage and motherhood were like BEFORE that happened. Everything has been more difficult since that moment.
While it isnt the same as losing someone to death as a mother it can really be emotional to think about all of the lasts that you didn’t realize were lasts. I think about things like the last time you sit beside the bathtub with them and giggle and play and the last time they reach for your hand while you walk together (I loved both of those things so much) but the last that breaks my heart the most is that my daughter and I used to curl up together every night and I would read to her and she would love to listen to so many books and she would close her eyes and fall asleep and say that being close to me and listening to my voice was peace to her. I don’t remember the last time we did that but it has been a couple of years. She’s 15 now and sadly she doesn’t like to read. I yearn for those peaceful nights when I could explore new worlds in books with her and smell her hair and watch her long eyelashes flutter to sleep. I miss when I was able to make the whole world peaceful with my love. I still ask if she wants to read together or curl up together but her world is bigger now and more complicated and she isn’t interested at all. If I had known it would be the last time I would have laid there a lot longer after she fell asleep not rushed away to make lunches for the next day and taken time for myself. I wonder if I will always been “homesick” for those days. And now that she’s older I am more aware of how fleeting each of the days together are. This is the hardest part of parenting I’m sure.
This comment touched me. I don't know your relationship with your daughter or how it will turn out but for myself, with my mother, we've come full circle. The teenage/college years are well behind me and when she reaches for me, I reach back. When I reach for her, she's always there. The phase you're in is difficult to navigate but it is possible to build new ways to connect until your daughter is settled into herself and feels ready to reach back.
Thank you so much. We are still very close and we do connect in different also special ways (that I’m sure I will miss the same way when the next chapter begins) like our hair salon dates and drives singing together in the car, girl get aways to hotels and dinner dates to talk (her) and listen (me). I just miss little her the simple way it was easy to be everything for her and to make life easier. This is how it is supposed to be, I know, her getting more independent and finding those comforts in her friends and others. My heart is just lagging that’s all :) I’m so glad you have a beautiful relationship with your Mom. Your care means more than anything to her I’m sure.
Wow Heather, this is huge. Wait til this coming Sundays. I think it'll resonate with you a lot. Everything you said here made me ache. I hope you know that. You're a magical addition to this wonderful community.
At Christmas 2016, I spoke with my mom via phone. I was in FL and I missed her terribly. She reassured me that we would have so many other Christmases together after that. This conversation was completely forgotten until maybe summer of 2017. The conversation haunts me. We never had any more Christmases together, we were spending March 5th of that year visiting her and she died. Yes. Gone. How is it that it I was there that day??? There was no goodbye, no warning time, no illness to create a space in which to grasp the mere thought of life without her. I had never taken a breath without her taking breaths herself. Grief is a black hole. Indefinite. The moment I recalled the conversation regarding Christmas? Time froze and dropped from underneath me. No, I would have no more Christmases with her. There are zero days she doesn't cross my heart and mind. and then one evening, I saw her! I looked up out the window at the kitchen sink...she was there! Standing looking at me! Mom? How? I must have blinked. It was my reflection. She is in me, with me. The love doesn't perish with the death and disappearance of their reality. So, while we didn't say goodbye, it wasnt necessary after all.
Oh goodness, Katy. This. My mother is the queen of Christmas, and to think of having to celebrate it without her is just so much, so overwhelming, though I know one day I must. She IS with you, in you, always. I love this viewpoint.
This is a strange one. There are so many I-didn’t-know-it-was-the-last lasts that I don’t remember them. When friends disappear from your life, it takes a while to realize it. The lasts don’t have the meaning associated with them at the time so they don’t become cemented in memory. Those have their own kind of hurt. They make me wonder what I could have done differently to make the relationship last. What would I change? I don’t know.
I think I have talked about this on here before. I was friends with a beautiful soul named Mike. He was my boss’s brother. I live a little north of Pittsburgh and he lived in Florida. He came up several times a year and helped his brother out at the pizza shop where I worked. We became friends over the course of a decade. He called me randomly one night. It had been a few months since he had come up for a visit. I was just about to start dinner so I put him on speaker phone and we proceeded to chat about everything and nothing for about two hours. It was time to eat so I said goodnight and hoped that I would see him soon. We aren’t sure about the timeline, but most likely less than two days later, he died. I may have been the last person to talk to him. Like with your friend Sven, we won’t ever know for sure what happened. He lived alone and it took about a week for everyone to realize no one had heard from him. There were a lot of questions in the weeks that followed. His brother (my boss) asked if he gave me any indication he was sick or if something else was wrong. I have had people say a final goodbye to me and I knew he did not. There was no finality to our conversation. I thought over the call a lot in the weeks and months that followed. Of course I don’t remember every word we spoke, but it will always be a fond memory. I’m glad I wasn’t doing anything important and had the time to just shoot the shit. I wouldn’t change any of it.
Probably the hardest of I-didn’t-know-then was the last time I kissed the guy I’m pretty sure I was in love with. We had a very strange relationship. He was my boss’s son. He was much younger than me. The first few years we worked together, we didn’t like each other. In fact I could barely tolerate him. As he got older, he matured as people do. His brother whom I also worked with became a close friend. We all would go see movies frequently and he started to grow on me and I began to consider him a friend. I literally woke up one day thinking about him and found I couldn’t stop. We started hanging out more and more just the two of us. I’ve never had someone I was genuinely happy to just be around. It didn’t matter what we were doing. I enjoyed every random minute I got to spend with him. I wanted more but there was no way I was ever going to say it out loud so I was just going to be happy with what I had. We went out to dinner one night after work and when he drove me home he asked if I thought we could be more than friends. I was simultaneously over the moon and terrified. I was afraid it would end the way it did. I think I told him as much. I think I told him I loved him that night but I don’t think he really knew what I was saying. Because we worked together we decided to keep it to ourselves while we figured it all out. In the few months of the experiment, there were some fun moments in the secrecy, but it did start to get hard. I have a hard time asking for anything and told myself to be happy with what I had. Then I got the news that the pizza shop would be closing as mentioned in a comment on the last lasts post. My focus was on getting through that and then we would figure the rest out when he finally had time. (I feel I should mention he was working probably 50-60 hours a week at this point). By the time the last day rolled around we were all pretty mentally and physically tired. That night he drove me home. I gave him a quick kiss and said good night thinking I’d see him in a week or so after we recovered from all the craziness. It took me longer than I’d like to admit to figure out it was over. It’s been almost a year and we’ve hardly spoken. This seems to be a trend in my life. I’m not sure why, but I have a hard time maintaining any real relationships. It seems like everyone forgets about me eventually. If I had known that night would have been the last real time we had, I would have lingered longer. I would have deepened the kiss. I would have told him that even if we weren’t going to be together romantically, I wanted to still be his friend and be able to see him every now and then. Now too much time has gone by and I just feel like crap about it.
In general, in a way I do try to treat everything as if it could be the last. I try to appreciate little things. I know it could always be a last. I also have had a discussion with a friend about not telling people if I had a terminal illness. I wouldn’t want to live the end of my life with everyone acting like it could be the last. So I guess it just comes down to having an awareness and just appreciating the small, seemingly insignificant moments.
I’d like to recommend a song of the day as well…Kiss the Rain by Hauser.
my goodness Andrea, this is wonderful, this rawness, this openness, and we treasure it completely. I hope you know that. This coming Sunday covers a lot of what you discussed. I'm so curious to know your feelings on it. Truly. Your closing paragraph, treating all things as though they could be the last, is the most important, and beautiful, way to go through this life. Thank you. So much.
Oh my goodness, wow, this one got me....It brought back so many many memories, regrets, smiles...love...but also made me cry harder than I have cried in a while...Lasts are hard, seems like the end, so after the toughness, I try to choose the firsts and make them posititve. My most recent "last" was the loss of a dear friend, who was quirky, strange, funny, compassionate, and kind of a hermit.....he loved his mountains, his family and loved to tease....my first for him is that he is no longer in pain or suffering, that he has found a new mountain beyond and is in his place, doing his thing. I love you Tyler and thank you for taking time to make us all ponder, remember, and find the light....
My brother Robin. The middle child of three. My older brother.
I don't even remember the last time I had seen him or talked to him. He wasn't a phone guy and had some animosity for me because I told him to fuck off one time over an argument of what things I 'had to' take back to my small apartment that had been Mom's. He never let that go.
I do remember I sent him a Christmas goodie package of homemade fudge and candied orange peel. I'm sure I said something nice in the note that accompanied it. But, as usual, I never heard back from him as to whether he got it or not.
He died suddenly just after the New Year of a massive heart rupture/attack. His heartstrings broke[, we were told, and he had had several heart attacks in the past two weeks. Thus spake the doctor who performed his autopsy.
I cleaned out his apartment since the landlord wanted it done before February came. I stayed there as he lived in Vermont to my New Jersey. I was looking for a will in the piles of papers he had all over the place. It was a mess. Everything. But I was in some sort of mode, shock, I'm sure, and got things done. No tears.
Until there were. I was sorting his bottles to be recycled, There were an unmanageable amount, and suddenly felt the exhaustion of being on point for a week. I sat in his garage and yelled 'fuck you, Robin' at the top of my voice. I sobbed.
Then there was a knock at the door, and an old girlfriend of his was there ... with food. I fell into her arms, and she stayed with me to make sure I ate and to see me settled.
I'll never know the last words we exchanged. I hope they were civil, and I really hope I hugged him.
Here's to Robin, to the complexities that is adult relationships, to the strangeness that can be family and all its meanings. I am sure you hugged. I am so sure of it.
Oh Tyler, I’m so sorry you’ve suffered such heartbreaking losses.
I know that I am blessed that I don’t have my own version to tell.
The people I’ve lost, I knew the loss was coming. Long illnesses with quick ends, as is so often the way.
The goodbye I didn’t get to say was to my dear ginger boy cat who died very suddenly and inexplicably at just 7 years of age. If I’d known when I left for work that day that I’d end my day at the vet sobbing into his soft fur, I would have stayed home.
I’d have stayed home for more time with him, and to be there with my husband when he found him and raced him to the vet.
Oh, my stars.
I knew you & Kevin will show up.
Like you always do.
While the Tink of the joint gets to drop a mic.
Thank you.
My heart is so full that your Festival of Lasts has been elongated.
Thank you for this Kit. Loss is part of it, I understand, but oof, sometimes they really do sting. For the loss of Your little fur child, I am so sorry for this. All the would haves eat away, don't they?
It was a very nice show.
Thumbelina & Cornelius.
For all of You.
To live in it?
While the Tidal playlists gave me data (in retrospect).
While I flounced from TKG because there is always so much I cannot say.
And, yet.
With tenderness & care,
Here we are.
And, you all finding out after.
Kevin & Kit keeping the lights on.
Is Everything.
Thank You.
https://tidal.com/mix/0089fa2173bb889973efac0d900624
May (it was something i did.)
This is so lovely, the pacing of your words are always fantastic, you know?
May I please have that in writing?
Egads.
I'm having to ask for references for all my different universes. Because my current one burnt out.
The age of adulthood, essentially, is 18.
Imagine nearly being a child of nearly 39. And, being the dying star of democracy delivery. They've birthed a grown-up (Zeus & Athena, I'm sure you've inferred, has had to unravel in so many of my connections this last year).
You & Kevin made it a tree house & not a cage. Cadences are my jam, ya know?
The late Kerry Greenwood (our sneaky secret phenomenal Australian Historian) had Phryne sing as she methodically tapped a casket full of fluoro paint at regular intervals --> to guide an overhead plane to a safe nearby landing strip. Book Two, I think.
If you layer & back yourself & trust all the moving parts (the yield to the process is such a hard thing for me)? It feels like it moves. Ya know?
I told a boy I lived in liner notes, and pockets of notes. Like the big crescendo in Born to Run (on a treadmill, interval training) & that rush before Bruce yells 1-2-3-4 is the Moment. When you wait for the air to take you. And, for those moments & that descent? You can fly.
Everything works & nothing hurts. And you & the music & your feet & your hummingbird heart is flying.
You put us there all the time, TKG.
Thank you 💜💜
So much beyond my grasp…
It sometimes amazes me
The little in life we actually control
Funny isn’t it, that half of what we do
To breathe
To walk
To look
To grow…
Even older
All these and more can happen -
Unintentionally?
In our fluid state of mind,
Sentience washes in,
messes about, and then flows away
To action
To awareness
To emotions
To memory
Even nowhere
Within our consciousness
intentionally?
Yet we feel great loss
At not being able
To stop
To energize
To be loved by
To convince
Even protect
Other lives we wish to control
Non-intentionally?
Fate is a foreseen
Yet not necessarily desired outcome
For some actions taken
To protect
To harm
To heal
To decay
Even live
That just happened
Unexpectedly
Q: what tempo do you hear yours at?
A skipping stone?
TKG rasp of the haiku?
Or more sombre.
Either works.
Am just wondering so that I can hear it, too.
--------
Long Liv(e)
I had the time of my life
Fighting dragons with you.
- for Kevin.
Because he knew that I had to get out.
You are such a treasure to all of us.
I hope you know that.
Oh Joanne, one can hear the mist of the babbling brook… or the flowing foot of a sonnet spoken from Windsor … and sometimes the crashing clatter of a lightning strike in the adjacent near dead woodlands. But nothing is more right with world as to when TKG pairs his voice with tensiled typewriter tales. (Edited for correct initials… lol)
Ah! The soul next door, Tyler Lott Gregson ;)
P.S. I DM'd you - hope that's okay
Zomgg!!!
You can live edit & you owned it.
This means lack of a race to the bottom & ship wars & all of that.
HUZZAH!!!
You are a treasure too. Hope you know.
Wait til my no filter face & my mouth drop a swear & a startle.
Love your work.
Kevin this felt like the exhalation of one big breath, and the words that fluttered inside it, and I loved every moment of it. Thank you for your artistry.
My unexpected last was my stinker of a cat Max who was really the definition of cat and then some—I loved him so much but he had a terrible attitude so I had a terrible attitude back. One day we came back from the store and found him and it altered me for life. I told a friend that from that point on I was always going to tell people just how much I loved them like he did (because he head bonked you if he loved you) and over time it’s caused me to change how I treat my pets—as I realized I was acting with a bad attitude I said a prayer for max and let it go, no matter the annoyance from the pet—they can’t help it and we certainly can’t communicate it. So over time I’ve come to love the hell out of them no matter what—telling them, showing them—people too—because you never know when that head bonk might be your last.
Agh, pet loss is such a different beast. Such a different different beast indeed. I am so sorry for yours. I hope that with time, even more and more time, the healing comes.
My recent last was the last hug I gave someone I dearly love. Neither of us knew it would be the last time, but she hugged me differently that time as if she subconsciously knew something might be about to change between us…a hug completely chosen by her and behind it an expression of a love that was even deeper than before. Though we have spoken twice since then (and those conversations were some of the most difficult and raw and devastating of my life as she announced she was walking away from our relationship), I will never forget that last hug that was “different.” The universe works in mysterious ways. Sometimes you get endings wrapped up in beautiful packages, sometimes not, and sometimes an in between.
I wonder sometimes, if we all subconsciously just "know," and when we do, it changes the way we feel. The way we hold. I wonder this often. I think, most of our lasts are something in between, as you so perfectly said.
When my daughter was almost two, I had a failed miscarriage that I needed a D&C for. Something about that experience or the anesthesia or I don’t know what dropped me into the world of my childhood trauma and reawakened the anxiety and depression from my younger years. I miss what marriage and motherhood were like BEFORE that happened. Everything has been more difficult since that moment.
My goodness, I am so sorry. I hope you know, if we can help in any way, we always will.
While it isnt the same as losing someone to death as a mother it can really be emotional to think about all of the lasts that you didn’t realize were lasts. I think about things like the last time you sit beside the bathtub with them and giggle and play and the last time they reach for your hand while you walk together (I loved both of those things so much) but the last that breaks my heart the most is that my daughter and I used to curl up together every night and I would read to her and she would love to listen to so many books and she would close her eyes and fall asleep and say that being close to me and listening to my voice was peace to her. I don’t remember the last time we did that but it has been a couple of years. She’s 15 now and sadly she doesn’t like to read. I yearn for those peaceful nights when I could explore new worlds in books with her and smell her hair and watch her long eyelashes flutter to sleep. I miss when I was able to make the whole world peaceful with my love. I still ask if she wants to read together or curl up together but her world is bigger now and more complicated and she isn’t interested at all. If I had known it would be the last time I would have laid there a lot longer after she fell asleep not rushed away to make lunches for the next day and taken time for myself. I wonder if I will always been “homesick” for those days. And now that she’s older I am more aware of how fleeting each of the days together are. This is the hardest part of parenting I’m sure.
This comment touched me. I don't know your relationship with your daughter or how it will turn out but for myself, with my mother, we've come full circle. The teenage/college years are well behind me and when she reaches for me, I reach back. When I reach for her, she's always there. The phase you're in is difficult to navigate but it is possible to build new ways to connect until your daughter is settled into herself and feels ready to reach back.
Thank you so much. We are still very close and we do connect in different also special ways (that I’m sure I will miss the same way when the next chapter begins) like our hair salon dates and drives singing together in the car, girl get aways to hotels and dinner dates to talk (her) and listen (me). I just miss little her the simple way it was easy to be everything for her and to make life easier. This is how it is supposed to be, I know, her getting more independent and finding those comforts in her friends and others. My heart is just lagging that’s all :) I’m so glad you have a beautiful relationship with your Mom. Your care means more than anything to her I’m sure.
Wow Heather, this is huge. Wait til this coming Sundays. I think it'll resonate with you a lot. Everything you said here made me ache. I hope you know that. You're a magical addition to this wonderful community.
At Christmas 2016, I spoke with my mom via phone. I was in FL and I missed her terribly. She reassured me that we would have so many other Christmases together after that. This conversation was completely forgotten until maybe summer of 2017. The conversation haunts me. We never had any more Christmases together, we were spending March 5th of that year visiting her and she died. Yes. Gone. How is it that it I was there that day??? There was no goodbye, no warning time, no illness to create a space in which to grasp the mere thought of life without her. I had never taken a breath without her taking breaths herself. Grief is a black hole. Indefinite. The moment I recalled the conversation regarding Christmas? Time froze and dropped from underneath me. No, I would have no more Christmases with her. There are zero days she doesn't cross my heart and mind. and then one evening, I saw her! I looked up out the window at the kitchen sink...she was there! Standing looking at me! Mom? How? I must have blinked. It was my reflection. She is in me, with me. The love doesn't perish with the death and disappearance of their reality. So, while we didn't say goodbye, it wasnt necessary after all.
Oh goodness, Katy. This. My mother is the queen of Christmas, and to think of having to celebrate it without her is just so much, so overwhelming, though I know one day I must. She IS with you, in you, always. I love this viewpoint.
This is a strange one. There are so many I-didn’t-know-it-was-the-last lasts that I don’t remember them. When friends disappear from your life, it takes a while to realize it. The lasts don’t have the meaning associated with them at the time so they don’t become cemented in memory. Those have their own kind of hurt. They make me wonder what I could have done differently to make the relationship last. What would I change? I don’t know.
I think I have talked about this on here before. I was friends with a beautiful soul named Mike. He was my boss’s brother. I live a little north of Pittsburgh and he lived in Florida. He came up several times a year and helped his brother out at the pizza shop where I worked. We became friends over the course of a decade. He called me randomly one night. It had been a few months since he had come up for a visit. I was just about to start dinner so I put him on speaker phone and we proceeded to chat about everything and nothing for about two hours. It was time to eat so I said goodnight and hoped that I would see him soon. We aren’t sure about the timeline, but most likely less than two days later, he died. I may have been the last person to talk to him. Like with your friend Sven, we won’t ever know for sure what happened. He lived alone and it took about a week for everyone to realize no one had heard from him. There were a lot of questions in the weeks that followed. His brother (my boss) asked if he gave me any indication he was sick or if something else was wrong. I have had people say a final goodbye to me and I knew he did not. There was no finality to our conversation. I thought over the call a lot in the weeks and months that followed. Of course I don’t remember every word we spoke, but it will always be a fond memory. I’m glad I wasn’t doing anything important and had the time to just shoot the shit. I wouldn’t change any of it.
Probably the hardest of I-didn’t-know-then was the last time I kissed the guy I’m pretty sure I was in love with. We had a very strange relationship. He was my boss’s son. He was much younger than me. The first few years we worked together, we didn’t like each other. In fact I could barely tolerate him. As he got older, he matured as people do. His brother whom I also worked with became a close friend. We all would go see movies frequently and he started to grow on me and I began to consider him a friend. I literally woke up one day thinking about him and found I couldn’t stop. We started hanging out more and more just the two of us. I’ve never had someone I was genuinely happy to just be around. It didn’t matter what we were doing. I enjoyed every random minute I got to spend with him. I wanted more but there was no way I was ever going to say it out loud so I was just going to be happy with what I had. We went out to dinner one night after work and when he drove me home he asked if I thought we could be more than friends. I was simultaneously over the moon and terrified. I was afraid it would end the way it did. I think I told him as much. I think I told him I loved him that night but I don’t think he really knew what I was saying. Because we worked together we decided to keep it to ourselves while we figured it all out. In the few months of the experiment, there were some fun moments in the secrecy, but it did start to get hard. I have a hard time asking for anything and told myself to be happy with what I had. Then I got the news that the pizza shop would be closing as mentioned in a comment on the last lasts post. My focus was on getting through that and then we would figure the rest out when he finally had time. (I feel I should mention he was working probably 50-60 hours a week at this point). By the time the last day rolled around we were all pretty mentally and physically tired. That night he drove me home. I gave him a quick kiss and said good night thinking I’d see him in a week or so after we recovered from all the craziness. It took me longer than I’d like to admit to figure out it was over. It’s been almost a year and we’ve hardly spoken. This seems to be a trend in my life. I’m not sure why, but I have a hard time maintaining any real relationships. It seems like everyone forgets about me eventually. If I had known that night would have been the last real time we had, I would have lingered longer. I would have deepened the kiss. I would have told him that even if we weren’t going to be together romantically, I wanted to still be his friend and be able to see him every now and then. Now too much time has gone by and I just feel like crap about it.
In general, in a way I do try to treat everything as if it could be the last. I try to appreciate little things. I know it could always be a last. I also have had a discussion with a friend about not telling people if I had a terminal illness. I wouldn’t want to live the end of my life with everyone acting like it could be the last. So I guess it just comes down to having an awareness and just appreciating the small, seemingly insignificant moments.
I’d like to recommend a song of the day as well…Kiss the Rain by Hauser.
my goodness Andrea, this is wonderful, this rawness, this openness, and we treasure it completely. I hope you know that. This coming Sunday covers a lot of what you discussed. I'm so curious to know your feelings on it. Truly. Your closing paragraph, treating all things as though they could be the last, is the most important, and beautiful, way to go through this life. Thank you. So much.
Oh my goodness, wow, this one got me....It brought back so many many memories, regrets, smiles...love...but also made me cry harder than I have cried in a while...Lasts are hard, seems like the end, so after the toughness, I try to choose the firsts and make them posititve. My most recent "last" was the loss of a dear friend, who was quirky, strange, funny, compassionate, and kind of a hermit.....he loved his mountains, his family and loved to tease....my first for him is that he is no longer in pain or suffering, that he has found a new mountain beyond and is in his place, doing his thing. I love you Tyler and thank you for taking time to make us all ponder, remember, and find the light....
I love you too Marmalade. You've always been so good and strong at lasts, I hope you know how valuable that is to us.
My brother Robin. The middle child of three. My older brother.
I don't even remember the last time I had seen him or talked to him. He wasn't a phone guy and had some animosity for me because I told him to fuck off one time over an argument of what things I 'had to' take back to my small apartment that had been Mom's. He never let that go.
I do remember I sent him a Christmas goodie package of homemade fudge and candied orange peel. I'm sure I said something nice in the note that accompanied it. But, as usual, I never heard back from him as to whether he got it or not.
He died suddenly just after the New Year of a massive heart rupture/attack. His heartstrings broke[, we were told, and he had had several heart attacks in the past two weeks. Thus spake the doctor who performed his autopsy.
I cleaned out his apartment since the landlord wanted it done before February came. I stayed there as he lived in Vermont to my New Jersey. I was looking for a will in the piles of papers he had all over the place. It was a mess. Everything. But I was in some sort of mode, shock, I'm sure, and got things done. No tears.
Until there were. I was sorting his bottles to be recycled, There were an unmanageable amount, and suddenly felt the exhaustion of being on point for a week. I sat in his garage and yelled 'fuck you, Robin' at the top of my voice. I sobbed.
Then there was a knock at the door, and an old girlfriend of his was there ... with food. I fell into her arms, and she stayed with me to make sure I ate and to see me settled.
I'll never know the last words we exchanged. I hope they were civil, and I really hope I hugged him.
Here's to Robin, to the complexities that is adult relationships, to the strangeness that can be family and all its meanings. I am sure you hugged. I am so sure of it.