We Didn’t Know It Was the Final Time

Later, at house, I noticed a photograph on my cellphone from Dec. 12, 2022, precisely a 12 months earlier, of Kiki flopped on the sofa in sweats, hair in a ponytail, smiling up at me. A cardboard field of ornaments on the ground beside her, our tablecloth with the elves and sweet canes draped over the armrest by her head. We had been laughing about how Christmas is difficult work, all that adorning, and the way we wanted to eat and relaxation and make pecan squares and watch some previous “Spouse Swap” episodes.
Eric was away. She had come up for the evening to our house in Keene, N.H., from hers in Northampton, Mass., to place up the tree with me. And now this was all I had: an image of her on the sofa, and one other, of the completed tree.
We regularly don’t get to know when it’s the final time. There should have been a final time I performed tennis with my father, a remaining journey to the films with my mom, earlier than I misplaced them each to dementia. A final dinner with my buddy Julie earlier than her most cancers analysis modified all the things, our daughters nonetheless little, the 4 of us laughing across the desk after we thought we had a lot time.
I wasn’t paying consideration then; I didn’t suppose I wanted to.
The final time I used to be with Kiki was the day after Christmas when she was on the point of head house. I had put an artwork ebook out on the espresso desk for us to take a look at collectively, one I had purchased months earlier than, understanding she would like it. We had the identical style and will love issues in the identical manner; I didn’t have that with anybody else.
“Let’s have a look at this now,” I mentioned, “earlier than you go.”
We sat on the sofa with the ebook between us, turning the pages and speaking about every image, laughing in the way in which you do when the opposite particular person sees one thing precisely the identical manner, sees why it’s humorous and unhappy on the similar time.