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What we did for the last time

At some point in your childhood you and your friends went out to play together for the last time, and none of you knew it.

I read this sentence out of the blue recently and found it profoundly sad, without knowing quite why.

I suspect that this supposed event – I don’t know when or where it might have occurred, or who the other characters were – had been given some previously unthought-of significance by being commented on. And since it now had significance, I wish I had been aware of it. It obviously must have happened.

In fact it would have happened several times, with different characters in different places. After all, I moved house at the ages of five, seven and ten, and two of those moves were to different cities.

We often do not know when something is going to happen for the last time. Some things happen like a bolt from the blue; most things creep up on us. 

Those of us fortunate enough to live in a relatively comfortable part of the world at a relatively comfortable time proceed through life often in an unthinking way: no-one is going to drop a bomb on us, probably, and if we had fish and chips last Friday, we will doubtless have it again next Friday. 

Then something happens that changes everything. My father died when I was ten. Obviously I did not know this was going to happen. It wasn’t my fault. 

But should I have been aware that some of my friends would soon disappear out of my life? Did I blink and miss it? Was that my fault? 

It should go without saying that those living in a war zone like Sudan, Ukraine or Gaza  will be all too aware that any day could be the last time they see their friends, their family or their house. I can hardly envy those people, or see them as morally superior. 

We all live in our own worlds. I have to deal with the world I have been placed in, but maybe I should be more aware that those tiny regrets sneaking from the distant past into the present are too trivial to be significant.

Maybe. But that sentence still hit me in the heart.

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Thelma

Wondering about her dreams,
I sit in a stiff wooden chair 
and wait for the curtain to come down

She breathes steadily
but without much conviction
her mouth wide open, ready to call

I say her name, but softly:
I want to speak to her but not to wrench her away
from wherever she is
from whatever peace she is finding

I walk up and down while
she lies still, beneath pale green,
eyes closed, blank screen

She does not catch sight
of the flowers I brought or the card:
she waits for the night

I remember her smile,
her laughter, 
her Robert Mitchum husband,
the distance between us 

Nurses come in with love:
everyone cares, but no-one 
can change anything
except her clothes

I have to go,
she has to stay

Those silent dreams:
another day