Did You Do Something for the Last Time Today?

Mark Mason

人的一生中所拥有的东西不少，无论是幸福还是失意，无论是快乐还是烦恼 ……第一次的印象，你可能永远都不会忘记：第一次背上新书包，走进校园；第一次拿到大学录取通知书的欣喜；第一次恋爱；孩子第一次用稚嫩的声音呼唤你……被人们珍藏在记忆的脑海里，当成人生标志性事件的总是那些“第一次”。然而历经岁月，当一个个人、一桩桩事在记忆中远去时，你是否才意识到“最后一次”已经悄然来袭，是否才恍悟到其实有些“最后一次”要远比“第一次”更深入你心？

The end of the year seems a good time to think about lasts. Not many of us ever do. Firsts are always landmarks: the first time you taste alcohol, drive a car… Then the first time your child talks, walks, goes to school. All are noted at the time, stored away1. store away： 储存。in the mental file marked “life events”. But when do we ever notice, much less remember, a last? We’re doing them a disservice—in many cases they’re even more poignant than the firsts.2. 我们并没有认真地重视它们——其实在很多情况下，它们甚至比那些“第一次”更为深刻。 disservice： 伤害；poignant： 深刻的，深深打动人心的。

One problem, of course, is that we often don’t know it’s a last at the time. You’ll register3. register： 〈口〉记住，使留下印象。your last day in a job, or your last exit from a house you’ve owned. Recovering alcoholics note (though only in retrospect4. in retrospect： 回想起来。) the occasion of their last drink. But the last time you go to London? Eat oysters5. oyster： 牡蛎，蚝。? Cry? Only decades later will you realise that a last has occurred,by which time the event itself may well be lost in the fog we call memory.

Someone who was obsessed with6. be obsessed with： 痴迷于……。lasts was Alan Clark. The second volume of his diaries includes an entry about them,focusing on his sons: the last time he read them a bedtime story, kissed them goodnight and so on. The theme highlights why lasts hold such power: they’re a reminder of mortality, of the fact that each one is a step along the road toward the last of all, your final breath.7. 其主题强调了为何那些“最后一次”会拥有如此大的力量：它们暗示死亡，暗示每个“最后一次”都是通往人生之路尽头的一步。highlight： 强调；mortality： 死亡，下文的immortal意为“不朽的”。We become parents to travel back in time, to attain a proxy8. proxy： 代理的，代替的。state of youth—and then before you know it your children are dragging you forward, reminding you that everything in life changes so quickly. I remember the night before my son’s potty training started, thinking,

‘This will be the last nappy I ever put on him.’9. 我记得在我儿子开始如厕训练的前一天晚上，我在想“这将是我最后一次给他换尿布。”potty training： 如厕训练，宝宝自主上厕所训练；nappy： 尿布。Now he’s five: already I’m looking forward (in only one sense of the phrase) to the last time we’ll kiss each other on the lips.

An acceptance of these occasions, surely, is a sign that you’ve accepted you’re not immortal. It’s death by a thousand lasts. A friend of mine has an old squash racquet10. squash racquet： 壁球球拍。which hasn’t seen action for years. He used to play a lot, to a high standard, but now cannot remember his final game: “They just seemed to fizzle out11. fizzle out：〈口〉终于失败，结果不妙（尤指开始很顺利）。.” Instead he sticks to doubles badminton (“much more genteel”).12. doubles badminton： 羽毛球双打；genteel：文雅的。At least he knows the transition13. transition： 转变。has been made. Often you don’t. “The last time you don’t know, not really know because there is always hope, until much later.”

Occasionally a last announces itself in a relatively trivial14. trivial： 不重要的，微不足道的。way. Anyone making a purchase late in the afternoon of 31 August 1971, for instance, would have recognised it as their final use of old money, that being the day the penny and threepence departed, ending the transition period to decimal currency.15. threepence：（英国旧时的）三便士；decimal currency： 十进制货币。At some point in the next few years, perhaps, when cheques are finally phased out16. phase out： 逐步淘汰。, some of us will be aware of writing our last one. Usually, however, the reason we know a last is a last is the big one, the reason that comes bearing a scythe.17. 但通常来说，我们会意识到某件事是“最后一次”的原因很明显，那就是死神的降临。bear a scythe：佩带一把长柄大镰刀，喻死神的降临。This can apply to pets, as with a dog’s final walk before “that” trip to the vet. But when it’s a human approaching the end of their life, occasions carry a real charge.A cousin of mine succumbed to18. succumb to： 死于。illness earlier this year: she and her husband made sure they took one last trip with their teenage children to their beloved Cornwall. It was good that honesty reigned—so often in this country we hide, even in the final days, from the D word, the inevitability that’s clearly so close.19. 坦然面对是很好的——在这个国家，即使是在临终前的几天里，我们都会逃避“死亡”这个字眼，逃避这个即将发生的必然。reign： 统治。At the age of 21 I visited my grandmother in hospital:turning to leave I knew that this would almost certainly be the last time we ever saw each other. Yet still neither of us acknowledged that fact.

More recently I went with a terminally20. terminally： 晚期地，不治地。ill friend to the pub. His death came even more quickly than envisaged, with the result that I’m fairly sure I had Graham’s last pint with him.21. envisage： 设想，预期；Graham： 葡萄牙产的格兰姆波特酒；pint： [量词]品脱，主要在英国、美国及爱 尔兰使用。My partner’s father, meanwhile, has just surrendered to frailty and given up his driving license.22. 同时，我的合伙人的父亲也因为身体原因放弃了开车。surrender to： 投降，屈服于；frailty： 虚弱，脆弱，这里指“身体不好”。For anyone, but especially for someone of his generation,driving is a fundamental expression of independence, so the move must have taken courage, and sparked so many memories. The last time he ever drove, we worked out, was to post the application for a renewal of his driving license.