There was a last time i held you in my arms

I don't know when it was.

I have no date, no photo, no clear memory. It happened in the middle of an ordinary day, between a rush to work and a dinner to cook. And neither of us noticed.

First times, we remember. The first day of school. The first job. The first home. They arrive announced, prepared, photographed.

Last times don't. They pass dressed as ordinary days.

I think about it sometimes.

How many things end this way, without a sound.

A last evening with university friends.

A last lunch with someone who taught you so much.

A last Christmas in a house that, soon after, won't be the same.

None of these moments warns you. There's no signal. No sentence different from the others. Just an ordinary day.

You understand it later. Sometimes years later. When you try to remember the last time and find only a blurred point.

We're convinced that important things should feel important. Instead they often slip away in silence, mixed in with everything else.

I'm not telling you to live every moment as if it were the last. That's too big a thing, and no one really manages it.

I'm telling you something smaller.

Every so often, stay one second longer. Look at who's in front of you. Listen better. Hold a little tighter.

That second doesn't change the day. It changes what remains of it.

Because the last time of something, almost always, looks like today.