Lasts

The last time I visited my family I went over to my grandpa's house. When I was younger I thought my grandpa was the tallest man on Earth but now that he is 95 he has slowed down and shrunk quite a bit. He moved to an assisted living facility a couple of years ago because of those factors.  On that same visit I went to see him and he told me I looked like a librarian, so obviously his sense of humor is still intact.

He has a shop in the basement of the house where he worked on lots of different side businesses, one of them being stamp making. The shop always scared me because there's a deer head mounted on the wall and some of the machinery looks like it would gladly take off a few of your knuckles. 

When I was down there a thought came to me - when was the very last time Grandpa was down here? Did he know it would be his last time in the basement when he ascended the stairs and turned out the light? 

That then led me to think about lasts. We tend to mark with triumph the firsts in our lives but lasts are not recognized, largely because we never know when they happen. Think about this - as a kid, when was the last time you truly played outside? How did you one day decide to play hopscotch and night games with the neighborhood kids, then the next decide to stay in? 

I can't think about this stuff too much because I start to make mental lists of all the lasts and then I get sad. I don't like being sad. 

Just some weird thoughts to send out to the internet on a Saturday night. G'night.