When my husband's grandfather was nearing his end of life here on earth, we all kept wondering: "Will this be his last birthday? his last Christmas? his last family outing? When you know the end is coming, it makes us stop and think about these 'lasts' and make sure to cherish them more.
But what about all the 'lasts' that we didn't know were the lasts until after it was long gone. When I was pregnant with our son, our eldest wasn't even two. Once we found out we were having a boy, we talked about names and landed on Isaac. So we began to talk about Isaac to our daughter. But when she said his name, it came out I-gee. So for a time, he was I-gee to all of us!! I didn't dawn on us until years later, that at some point she started saying Isaac and I-gee was gone. We missed this last...
Have you heard of the book, "Let Me Hold You Longer"? It's written by Karen Kingsbury. It's a children's book written with 'lasts' on her heart. I heard her read this book just this last weekend at a conference. There weren't many dry eyes in the place when she was done!
We celebrate firsts with pictures, celebrations and even blog posts, but the 'lasts' often go on unnoticed. Here's an excerpt from her book:
The last time that I held a bottle to your baby lips.
The last time that I lifted you and I held you on my hip.
The last night when you woke up crying, needing to be walked,
When last you crawled up with your blanket, wanting to be rocked.
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I look ahead and dream of days that haven't come to pass.
But as I do, I sometimes miss today's sweet, precious lasts...
So what if we lived with 'lasts' in mind? I missed this last day in the 80's for 2011 and if I'm not careful, I'll miss some other lasts that won't ever happen again...so in the words of musical group, Switchfoot...I'm keeping my eyes wide open!
