“We need to keep firmly in mind that everything we value and the people we love will someday be lost to us. If nothing else, our own death will deprive us of them … There will be – or has been! – a last time in your life that you brush your teeth, cut your hair, drive a car, mow the lawn, or play hopscotch. There will be a last time you hear the sound of snow falling, watch the moon rise, smell popcorn, feel the warmth of a child falling asleep in your arms, or make love. … If we thought that we could repeat them at will, a meal at a favorite restaurant or a kiss shared with our lover might have been unremarkable. But if we know that they cannot be repeated, they will likely become extraordinary events: The meal will be the best we ever had at the restaurant and the parting kiss will be one of the most intensely bittersweet experiences life has to offer. … Every time we do something it could be the last time we do it, and this recognition can invest the things we do with significance and intensity … We will no longer sleepwalk through life.”
William Irvine, from A Guide to the Good Life
I never took it for granted. Not once.
I know this to be true, because I have so many photographs of so many smiles … so many times that I tried to immortalize a moment as she went up and down and around and up and down and around.
Still, I never recognized that last time she asked to ride a merry-go-round and I’ll never see that smile again.
She is older now. Few things seem to bring her joy in the same way.
Perhaps she has adapted.
Or, maybe I have.
Of course, I know better.