“Life, it is thanks to death that you are precious in my eyes.”

Seneca

When we are young and healthy, we think we have time. Even when we are not so young and healthy, we tend to gloss over the finiteness of life, thinking that the end is still far over the horizon — that what we are doing right now will be done for many days to come. Yet if we pause and look back on the things we used to do, aren’t there so many we’ve not done in ages? Hasn’t so much of life already fallen along the wayside? Most of all, time.

Look around you. Look at your day and what you’ve been doing. Look at your past and what you’ve already done. The experiences. The adventures. The accomplishments and the failures. When did they start? When did they end? Because the reality is that all of these, everything, will one day arrive for the last time — and we cannot possibly know which of those arrivals will be the one.

I thought about that this morning. It’s a sobering idea.

There will be a last time to everything in my life. Already, there are many things my past self assumed I’d still be doing, yet I have not done for years and years. How little I knew back then.

I stopped skiing god knows how many years ago. Yet did I think it would be the last time at that moment? No, it didn’t cross my mind. Then life happened, and time passed.

I hugged my grandpa for the last time, but I didn’t know he would have a fall and die not too long after that. I was rushed, thinking this was just another visit, and in hindsight I realize how precious that moment had been — and how foolishly I’d taken it for granted.

I’ve travelled to Rome, Venice, Prague, Dublin, London, and many other cities in Europe. Never did it cross my mind that those might be the last times I’d visit them.

I’ve read many books, and looking at my bookshelf I see so many that I opened and closed over a decade ago. Have I read those for the last time? Will my hands ever turn those pages again?

Everything we do in it is mortal. There’s a first and a last for everything, the good and the bad. And even in the unpleasant parts of ourselves, there’s a certain novelty to them in thinking that those, too, will breathe their last one day. The last time you argue with someone you love. The last time you do a bad habit. The last time you make a certain mistake. The last time you waste your money on this or that. The last time you hurt your own spirit. To echo Seneca’s writings, one of the best things we can do is this: to ensure that our faults die before we do.

The most important thing now is the life we have left.

I look at my life now, and the people around me, and it is the uncomfortable truth that everything I am doing will one day be done for the last time. Everyone in my life will be gone one day. Everything I take for granted, everything that I do with ease, everything that comes automatically — all of it is limited, and each time is one less time in a very short list of times, because life is short, so short.

I take my physical fitness for granted, but there will be a last time when I can do a pullup or walk a flight of stairs.

I love to travel, but there will be a last flight, a last adventure, a last hotel booking, a last stamp on that passport.

I am a writer, but there will be a last page, a last story to edit, a final publication, a final character brought to life from my mind. There will be a story unfinished. A last word on a page.

I’m a paramedic, but I know there will be a last time I put on that uniform.

I am young, but there will be a last time I look that way.

My parents are still alive, but there will be a last time I hear their voices, a last time I hug them, a last time they give me loving advice. One day I will look back on all those times I took for granted and wish I’d used them better, because little hurts more than the absence of those we loved.

A last moment with my best friend.

A last cup of coffee.

A last night out.

A last love.

It strikes me how easily I let it pass, how little I think about it in the moment. These are precious, irreplaceable gifts, and yet I — and most people — let them pass without even noticing their worth, too worried about the past, the future, and all the little cluttering details of modern life. And we know better! We do this… and often it is too late, and in hindsight we realize that that was the last time, and by god we wish we’d known.

I certainly wish I’d known I was hugging my grandpa for the last time.

I wish so many things, but wishes almost never come true.

We can’t change the past. The only thing we can change is how we live now and in the future. So how about we pay attention? How about we pull ourselves out of the storm of thoughts and worries and actually notice the moment we’re in? Life is precious, and there’s not a whole lot of it either. Years pass in the blink of an eye. So do the people and things we love. And we never know, never have any assurance, how long we will be here for.

It reminds me of the elderly man whose home I showed up to for a wellness check. He’d died days ago, but no one had known. When I entered his death-reeking basement apartment I saw many last times. A last pot of Folgers coffee. A last local newspaper. A last bowl of cereal. A last episode on Netflix, which was paused and still on screen. A last sleep in an unmade bed. A last page in an unfinished book on the bedside table.

All of this, and at the zenith of it all.

A last moment.

A last heartbeat.

A last breath.

And that’s that. Curtains.

One day each of us will experience the same thing. The circumstances will be different, but the core of it the same. How will we live until that time comes? What will we take for granted? What will we actually notice and appreciate? It’s a matter of utmost importance to be aware of life as you live it, for this world is filled with blindness, and now more than ever it’s possible to drift through life without ever really noticing how alive we really are how beautiful that is. The finiteness of every experience we have should make them precious. The hugs. The adventures. The smiles. Even the tears. Life, in all of its joys and pains, is meant to be cherished.

So today, I wonder, what might I be doing for the last time?

Ask this of yourself when you go about doing something important: would you do it differently if you knew it was the last time?

Because one day, you will be right.