It’s been almost a year now since I lost my father.  It’s strange to think that exactly a year ago, while his health had in fact been declining, he was still working almost everyday in the office with us, getting up every morning like he had all my life, going out into the work world making things better for his clients and building a better life for his family.

Thursday there will be a memorial for an old friend from high school who was an equally good man.  Saturday, my grandmother’s memorial.  These things will continue to come with more and more frequency now that I’ve come of a certain age.  In death, there’s nothing fair as far as the living are concerned, yet, what’s fairer than death itself?  It comes for all of us sooner or later, and we all go out on equal terms.  Some sooner, some later, all of us winding up at the end of our journey in the same boat as the next person.

What gives me pause are those moments we cannot fathom as being our last.  One week before my dad passed, he was in the office for the last time, although we didn’t know that then.  I had driven him to a doctor’s appointment earlier that morning, the last time we’d be alone in his Jeep, although we didn’t know that then.  It was the last conversation we’d share alone as father and son.  I remember we talked about Salvador Perez having become a US Citizen the day before; and that I didn’t forget the turn off of Ward Parkway to get to the doctor’s office like I had every other time we had went. 

More than these little things that happened in the last week of his life, though, are the events that were no where near the end and we had no way of knowing they would be the last of their kind.  In July, the previous summer, I had went with him to the lake house, so we could pick up work from our client in Harrison, Arkansas.. who also happened to be his dentist and a close family friend.  He had dental work done.  We had dinner at Cantina Laredo on the Branson Landing.  And the next morning we saw the client again, stopped and had the best breakfast I had ever eaten ( I told him as much) at the Ranch House in Harrison, and headed back home.  In July, 2019, he saw the dentist for the last time, we went to the lake together for the last time, he (although it was just a bump) rear ended someone for the last time.  6 months before the end of life, our lives experienced the end of some things we had always assumed there would be a next time. It was our last summer together and while we never really spoke of it, it was there in front of us the entire time.

So today, I know there won’t be another trip to the lake with my dad.  I won’t get a chance to tell my friend Erick the kind of impact he made on my life, and I won’t hug my grandmother again and tell her I love her.  But what are we doing about all the stuff in between?  In this race to the last summer…because each year that passes, that birthday I have in August becomes more and more likely a candidate as my final one… are we, am I, making sure that we live in each moment in a such a way there are no regrets that it might have been the last conversation, the last fish we caught, the last sandwich we made for our child, the last kiss we had with our one true love…are we living in the moment and present enough that when we do look back later there are no regrets or wistful thoughts about what might have or should have been?

When we lose someone, it’s easy to remind ourselves that we need to tell everyone we love that we love them.  It’s easy to find in that moment of loss inspiration to speak the things that are mired in our day to day and lost to routine and everything we never have time for because of work or stress or life.  What if being present, living in the moment, LOVING in the moment, every day…all day…became the routine instead of a victim to the routine?

I honestly don’t know if I have written my last poem, hugged my children for the last time, told the woman that I love with every fiber of my being that I need her like water and air and a meal and a bed, for the last time.  But today, in this present moment, I’m doing something to be sure that while I’ll be gone and not be around to regret any of it, that I will have done something on my end to make sure everyone in my life knows exactly where my heart was when I’m no longer around to show them, and hopefully that will soften their regret a little bit, too.