Lasts

When my Aunt Izzy was very old, she and my Uncle Mel had to replace their refrigerator. They were people of deep religious faith, and in Aunt Izzy's case, that faith was coupled with a wide stripe of pragmatism.

Photo by Juan Córdova on Unsplash

"Mel, just think," she announced, clapping tiny, arthritic hands together, "this should be the last refrigerator we'll ever buy." I never heard whether my uncle embraced her realization as enthusiastically since she might as well have informed him that the grim reaper was holding the refrigerator warranty and an extended warranty was not available. 

No doubt her enthusiasm had a lot to do with a conviction that something more rewarding than major appliance-shopping awaited her after death. Years later she put her faith where her mouth was by proving herself fearless of death. As she lay dying, she looked around her room at all the family bustling in and out, sobbing, and fussing over her and sighed, "Oh, I'm having the most wonderful death!"

There's a line that was circulating on Reddit that still stops me in my tracks: at some point, you and your friends went outside to play together for the last time - and none of you knew it. Of course that's not true of everyone. Some people remember the exact moment childhood ended or never had that kind of friend group growing up. But it's "near enough to the truth" to be chilling.  

In 2014, four years before he died, Philip Roth, the last of a human chain of brilliant American writers that included John Updike, Saul Bellow, Kurt Vonnegut, Bernard Malamud and a doll's handful of others, made this pronouncement: "I can guarantee you that this is my last appearance ever on television . . . absolutely my last appearance on any stage anywhere."

He got around that by granting interviews via email and in his home. But still, that appearance may well have been the last - of a kind. Being one of your country's most treasured novelists, can make it hard to sever all ties to the limelight. 

I say all that to say this: Lasts are interesting things. Whether it's your last refrigerator or your last television appearance, the final time we - do anything, really - is a small death.