LAST TIME

I think often about all the places she used to go, hurrying about her day.
She was the kind of woman you don’t forget—
The way she dressed up even for the grocery store. That salt and pepper hair that curled just so.

I imagine her dry cleaner, eyeing the Neiman Marcus cocktail dress dropped off weeks ago.
His voice echoes my perpetual musings of a loving mama, “Whatever happened to that beautiful little woman with the generous smile?”

These are my thoughts in those quiet moments when now and then collide, when I struggle to remember the agonizing inevitable “last times” tucked inside the Mondays through Sundays of my life.

Days fall away like pages ripped from a story. So many of the sentences feel dangling and incomplete—

When was the last time I embraced my daddy?
When was the last time I picked up my babies before they grew too big to carry, before they grew into boys that became men?

Friends whose lives were once so intricately intertwined, their faces etched in the makings of who I am, indelible lessons like tattoos on my skin. Shouldn’t I remember if there was even a goodbye, sharing secrets one day and then whisked away by a week’s demands…and then the next…and the next?

We sprinkle our DNA like fairy dust over places and people, then carry on as if the exchange of our energy, our presence,  isn’t sacred somehow.

The last time of anything is a little death, a sacrifice, sacred ground.

I asked my husband recently, “When you long for something laid aside and forgotten, what comes to mind?” His reply without hesitating? “Dancing with you.”

When is the last time you held your partner, walked barefoot, howled at the moon?

I am awed that first and last are like conjoined twins—
There will only be one first kiss. And, if I am blessed, walking down the aisle will never happen again.

Would I have breathed a different cadence in these moments if I had reconciled with the notion that we can never rewind? How would I order my steps in these first, last times?

I don’t want to die at McDonalds. Not a trivial mantra but more a battle cry, decreeing that I refuse to step into any place or situation where my soul will not be content in giving over its final breath.  

This is when I ask myself…and you…where are you spending your time?

The last time. Can you remember?

Laughing so hard you couldn’t breathe?

Praying over someone you don’t know.

Telling someone they’re extraordinary.

Tying your son’s or daughter’s shoes.

Kissing your husband on the lips in public.

Getting your hands dirty.

Going to church.

Smiling at someone you’ve never met.

To be born. To kiss. To speak. To dance. To hold. To breathe. To hear. To laugh. To say goodbye.

 Do it. As if it were the last time.