Last Times

Several months ago I was reading through a series of novels to this woman in the nursing home at which I volunteer. In one book, the mother of this family writes a letter to her son who is getting married in which she talks about the "last times." It's easy to commemorate the "first times" - the first smile, first tooth, first step, first date, but the last times often slip past us and are gone before we realize it, leaving only a bittersweet memory in hindsight.

As a parent who is not only celebrating the joys of finally being able to be one but yet also realizing that I may never have this opportunity again due to the potentential problems of another pregnancy, I feel the realization of those last times especially hard. Today I tried to get Brennan (who was, albeit, extremely overtired) to fall asleep on my chest so we could nap together on the recliner like we used to do. He just wouldn't relax and wanted nothing to do with it. On top of the fact that he was having a rough day, that realization that we might never spend that special naptime together again that way got me really choked up. How quickly things change. He's only been taking naps in his bassinet for just over a month.

And then I remembered, too, the forgotton "last time" of skin-on-skin naptime like we used to do every day in the NICU and only sporadically in the first month he came home. That, too, is likely gone and I don't even remember when that last time was.

I wish I had treasured it more.