Lasts
Roxie Mirabelle Forbes took this photo on June 5, 2019. It was her last. She drowned three weeks later.
Our lives are filled with firsts. And lasts.
The last push before womb becomes world. The last breast or bottle. The last crawl across hardwood. The last wobble before walk. The last burble before word. The last dream in a crib. The last diaper. The last day before school.
The last act before the first regret. The last day of innocence.
The last babysitter. The last hour of childhood. The last day of school. The last look at a childhood home before it is the last time as your address.
And the next to last love. And the next to last thereafter. Then the the love that lasts.
Then the last encouragement from nurses and doctors...
Until the last push before your baby moves from womb to world. And the last smile before your love falls fast asleep from the birth of new chapter.
But in time there is the last breath from grandmother and grandfather. And from mother and father.
Then your last paycheck. The last breath from your last love. The last day of the love of anything.
And the very last seconds of your very own life. Back to the womb of the world…a world that spins on and on and on despite your last breath.
Roxie had so few firsts and one colossal last. As I have said, her death was the last day of my life as I knew it. Her lasts will forever be mine as I knew me.
There is no other way to say it: life is now a borderless sea of agony dappled with sporadic waves of relief. I no longer have a choice, however, but to define the little I have stirring in me by what Roxie left me to do—which is to unsee my beloved child’s suffering through the eyes of children who I might, in some small way, perhaps help to experience an entire lifetime’s worth of lasts…and firsts. Not just six and a half years.
My dear baby girl. At least the very last words that flew from my lips to your ears on your last morning were, “I love you.”
How I loved you, Roxie. And oh how that love will last, my precious, remarkable girl.