I watched ET recently with my six-year-old. He liked it, obviously – no child can resist a film in which grownups are bamboozled and frogs let loose, even if it can’t match the unparalleled frenzy of The Super Mario Bros Movie – but he didn’t love it. So I wonder if I will ever watch ET again. Maybe not. The child actors are wonderful and the score is majestic, but there are a lot of excellent films. I might be done with this one. At least, I thought, absolutely not crying at the “Be good” bit, it was a good viewing on which to close.
My dad died a few years ago. Ever since then, I have been more aware of these little “lasts” that make up a life: the moments, recognised or otherwise, when you do something for the final time. With my dad, there were a bunch of them. Moving in with him after his cancer diagnosis, I was there for his last beer, his last cup of tea, his last visit with friends and his last night.
The last time we walked his dog together is the one I remember best. He was very tired and too frail to risk clambering over stiles and through mud. We both knew it wouldn’t happen again. I remember thinking at the time that it was a nice day. Cold and clear, sun and frost on the fields. Not all of the lasts were as good as that.
We live through lasts all the time, of course: some that we would be aware of if we were paying attention, others at which we can only make an educated guess. I went to Japan several times in my 20s. On each visit, including the most recent one, it seemed inevitable that I would be back again at some point. Now, I am not so sure. I may already have been to a nightclub for the last time; if so, I don’t remember which one it was, but I don’t think I liked it very much.
Then there are the towns we visit, the places we pop into regularly, the people we like but don’t know well enough to organise drinks with when they fall out of our orbit. When I left a gym in London, I remember my cherished training partner, Khaz, going: “Well, this is it – I guess I’m never going to see you again.” With my signature fear of awkwardness, I mumbled something to the effect that we would definitely run into each other. Khaz, having no patience for comforting self-delusion, just gave me a hug and left it at that.
He was right, obviously. Acknowledging lasts when they happen is the only way to ensure we treat them with the respect they deserve. Now that I am hurtling through my 40s, every time I watch a film, visit a new pub or take a train ride somewhere unusual, there is a good chance it will be the last – so I should probably stop looking at my phone and appreciate what is going on. The world has convinced us that the possibilities are endless, but they aren’t. In fact – and please try to take this in a positive way – they are shrinking all the time.
More important than any of these things, though, are the lasts that go whooshing by without any indication, unnoticed until days, weeks or months later. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that there will be a last time you pick up your child, but there will be dozens of other things, too: the last time they grab your hand to cross a road, pronounce it “hitapotamous” or scream with fury because you try to shampoo their hair. These are the ones where you have to play the probabilities and try to appreciate them as you reach what the author Tim Urban calls “the tail end” – the last 10%, 5% or 2% of times that they might happen.
There will be a last time my six-year-old asks to sleep in the big bed because he is scared, then kicks me throughout the night and wakes me up at 6.45am on a Sunday because he wants to watch The Super Mario Bros Movie again. There will be a last time for everything. What my dad has taught me, I hope, is to enjoy them while I can.
• Joel Snape is a writer and fitness expert
