The Last First Day of School: ‘Love Is Proved in the Letting Go'

Life is measured in mileposts, a steady progression through the rites of passage that delineate the mortal journey. When we're young the markers of time are mostly thrilling firsts: first day of school, first kiss, graduation, first job, marriage, first home. Soon they give way to other, less welcome firsts: first broken heart, first hospital visit, first death of a loved one. As we age, the firsts are replaced by a steady accumulation of lasts. The realization dawns that each of the little rites of life and love we have performed with metronomic regularity for decades are happening now for the final time: the last trip to a favorite place, that last steep hill climb, the last visit with an old friend. The joy of parenthood is getting to live all those firsts again through your children. The pain comes in realizing you will do the lasts again too. Suddenly the most routine things you have done for years become pregnant with existential significance as you realize you will never do it again. The finality of the act reminds you not only of your own mortality, but of the strange and awful severing that growing old represents: the shock of understanding that these creatures you have made and shaped aren't yours after all. All you can do is send them on their way to mark off their own succession of firsts and lasts.