We love firsts. First place. First in line. First downs. Most of all, perhaps, we love first times.
Especially new parents, who are constantly experiencing firsts. Baby’s first smile. First words. First steps.
First, first, first.
In truth, the firsts never cease. Like chocolates on the conveyor belt in the classic episode of “I Love Lucy,” the firsts keep coming. First day of kindergarten, first solo bike ride, first time driving.
First, first, first.
Sometimes, however, I think we focus too greatly on firsts. Partly this is because firsts are easy—not necessarily easy to accomplish, mind you, but easy to recognize.
Your son has never ridden a bike without training wheels or your hand steadying it from behind and now he does. Let’s go to Ben & Jerry’s to celebrate! Your daughter scores her first soccer goal. Another recognizable milestone: Do you want a cone or a cup?
Of any age, we all have our own conveyor belt of firsts. First rollercoaster ride, first airplane flight; first crush, first kiss; first this and first that, all easy to recognize and store away in a mental scrapbook.
But what about lasts?
“Never thought we’d have a last kiss,” Taylor Swift poignantly sings, and this rings true also for the last time we read a bedtime story to our children or a last time we give them a piggyback ride to bed. But, of course, there was a last “Goodnight Moon” together with my daughter and a last schlep up the stairs carrying my sleepy son, for the girl and the boy are now a woman and a man, themselves parents of little ones.
Lost lasts. How sad that we rarely recognize a last while it is happening and miss out on the chance to press the “record” button on our mental smartphones.
I wish, for example, I could specifically remember the last time my mom, gone three decades now, held my little hand crossing a street—or, older, I helped her cross.
Lasts, lasts, lasts, lost, lost, lost.
Nor can I draw to mind last time I gave my son and daughter baths in the tub. Had I know it was the last time, surely I would have memorized all the details and splashed a little more—no, a lot more!—and laughed louder—much louder!—at the wet soapy floor.
When was the last time I brushed their teeth for them? Read them Dr. Seuss? Played “Sam the Alligator Man” with them, giggling their heads off, wrestling on the floor?
Sometimes, if you are lucky, life gives you a do-over. Indeed, grandchildren afford not only the chance to savor the whole menu of firsts again, but to try to recognize and savor the lasts this go-round. And so it is that I am again reading “The Runaway Bunny” aloud and giving piggyback rides to my three granddaughters.
Come to think of it, unlike firsts, we often have the power to create a brand-new last. Thus, I can read “Goodnight Moon” to my grown daughter a new last time and—if I take Tylenol afterwards—give my 6-foot-3 son a new last piggyback ride.
Two nights hence, we shall sing “Auld Lang Syne” to 2023 and fondly bring to mind some of our long-ago firsts. And as we ring in 2024, it seems to me we should resolve not only to celebrate the firsts that await us, but also to embrace other moments as if they were old acquaintances not be forgot.
Because you never know when the last kiss is.
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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn
Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.
