Doing things for the last time

Thanks for the post, I did wonder if other people silently struggle too.
I’m hugely sad at giving up running the village fete coconut shy, windsurfing, I cried when I couldn’t even manage to stand on a SUP, still have a stuntman kingsized trampoline - can’t use after knee surgery….

Wanted to revisit a campervan trip with bikes right around the Brittany coastline with a friend (after being widowed) - but the friend also died. Ditto a risky long hike and challenging climb with friend on the remote west coast of Fuerteventura - it won’t happen.
Sat in tears on a cliff in Turkey, having climbed down the summer before, I had now lost my nerve…

There was no book telling us all of this when we were young!

Also remember in Sardinia seeing an older lady unloading a wheelchair from her car and getting her frail husband carefully into it - so we pushed him the mile or so uphill for his last view over the clifftop….

On the other hand I try and take comfort in what I can do - sail a solo catamaran (instead of the windsurfing), climbing into the river for a swim, (a struggle to get out though) and long exploratory sea swims into distant coves….

Squats! I'm 68 and realise I can still do them. Woop te woop. I am doing them all over the place. Knees are a bit creaky though. Showing off in the supermarket aisle and had to ask him to help me up as I got my trainer stuck under the fitting. He wasn't impressed and didn't believe my foot got wedged. lololol

This is so sad. Leaving my bungalow and lovely gardens would be hardest for me.

Oh dear, sorry to disappoint! In my dreams though!

Germanshepherdsmum

I’ve always wanted to ride a horse but I know I never will now. Never had time. My next door neighbour owns horses, has fields and stables and a manège behind our garden and gives riding lessons. How envious I feel when I watch!

Oh dear GSM. Another illusion bites the dust..
I don’t imagine what many GNs look like, but I do think of you cantering your horse across a field with 2 GSs running alongside.
I’ve always wanted to ride again, but haven’t been on a horse for about 50 years, and if I did now, it would probably my last time…..for anything

I don’t know, is it better not to know you are doing something for the last time. Last year my husband was given a terminal diagnosis, he was given 4 weeks but lived for a further 16 weeks. Most of the time with medication he was reasonably well. The family asked what would he like to do. Everything was with family and friends we had a lovely time but everything was extremely sad.
5 weeks before he became very ill he wanted to go with family to Cromer ( we had been many times when the children were small). Simple things like fish and chips on the pier, playing with granddaughter on the beach, a beer in a pub garden, cooking a bbq, watching the sunset over the sea. It was wonderful but I was distraught knowing “this was the last time”.

I used to go regularly to London for ballet and opera, my passions in life. I went by train, Liverpool to Euston. I began to find it too exhausting, and I remember wearily getting off the train in Liverpool and heading for the taxi rank thinking “I just can’t do this any more”. That was the last time, a few years ago. It may not sound very difficult, but it was for me.

Gave up riding my motorbike 5 yrs ago (moved to 4 wheels)

i was an avid winsurfer in my 20s at 44 i tried it,put my back out now at 67, not a chance.

i miss going for walks in glencoe, my brother and i used to go out a couple of times a month (we never grew up together, he is my best friend), i got cancer then came lockdown then cancer again and i now have lymphedema in my leg so can't walk very far, glencoe is a place i love it is so quiet and peaceful, i live in the middle of a large built up city, i wish i had known it would be my last walk and picnic just chatting with my best friend.

Greetings Annie, imagining you in the sunshine and not a little envious, rather, a lot envious.

What an enjoyable thread! So many of you have had much more active lives than me. I am nearly 89 and cannot contemplate doing any more long distance travel. For many of us losing our husbands/partners was life changing and poor health gets to many of us, but I admire how many of you can walk miles, drive long distances and manage to get on with stuff. This thread is quite sad for me. I have had bad falls which make me nervous to walk far. When I am alone I promised my son I would be very careful and have my phone handy and now my heart is causing breathing problems so I contemplate having to go to Martinique our neighbouring island for the more sophisticated medical tests. Now I wish I had concentrated better in French lessons! However, I still use my walking stick to walk on the flat area of the garden and spend my days reading lots of UK papers and magazines. I am a news junkie and listen and watch TV to keep up. Today my favourite presenter Iain Dale was in Scotland to meet the three contestants for the SNP. My main social life is having dinner with friends and supporting the dog shelter people who do an amazing job. It’s a quiet life since my husband died and I still miss him so much. Your posts cheer me up and it is good to read about all the activity you manage to get in as you get older. Keep it up ladies! You are an amazing bunch.

No more operatic leading roles for me like Aida. These roles were part of my identity, my life revolved around them. There was a stress element I don’t miss.
But I still sing, recitals and informal concerts, even folk music.

Life has so many wonderful things to offer…during lockdown I returned to drawing and painting, an early passion and then travelling to new places.
I know I will never again lie on a foreign beach in the sun with my late DH, reading a good book and looking forward to a delicious evening meal.

I’d love to Norah but my knees are totally shot. I’d need so much help getting on and off, it would be too embarrassing! I know my neighbour would help me, and one of her horses is very docile, but my dignity gets in the way. It will remain a dream.

I think I've climbed my last mountaing. My breathing isn't great these days.

We are mid-seventies, I'm fit and active but DH has very, very limited mobility, is wobbly and prone to falling so I can't leave him and I doubt I'll ever go abroad again or even have a holiday. Leaving him at home for a day out is not feasible. Although he has a pendant for calling for help if he falls, he would get very depressed on his own (his mental health is fragile). But, tbh, I've come to terms with this and accept it with equanimity.

Horse riding and dinghy sailing - used to be very competitive with the sailing. About 6 years ago I bought myself a small keel boat thinking it would be better for a more mature person - big mistake! I was so nervous going out every time that my mouth was completely dry, and I'm not nimble enough to duck under a boom any more.
Still walking, though, and joined the local U3A walking group recently which is wonderful and I'll keep going till I drop! Still play tennis once a week with a group of us "old girls" who are all over 70 - you'd laugh if you saw us!

Germanshepherdsmum

I’ve always wanted to ride a horse but I know I never will now. Never had time. My next door neighbour owns horses, has fields and stables and a manège behind our garden and gives riding lessons. How envious I feel when I watch!

Gracious, give it a go, your setting is perfect.

Sign up for 2-3 rides, they lead you round at first - easy peasy. Then, on a gentle horse with the trainer on a sweet horse next to you - you ride for a little distance, and so it progresses - riding is fantastic!

Fleurpepper
So true about your response to Henetha’s post - swimming is the BEST therapy for all joints, whether artificial or not! They actually recommend it.

After 10 yrs of abstaining (and perhaps other missed physical activity) her leg muscles may be atrophied somewhat but she would be able get back into strengthening her muscles and back in the water. Go for it Henetha!
Cheers!
USA Gundy

I’ve always wanted to ride a horse but I know I never will now. Never had time. My next door neighbour owns horses, has fields and stables and a manège behind our garden and gives riding lessons. How envious I feel when I watch!

Blondiescot

Germanshepherdsmum

Yes, it certainly does. It’s better not to know it’s the last time imo, if possible.

I would tend to agree with that. I would love to to go horse riding again, but I know it's probably fairly unlikely. I think I'd have been very sad indeed if I'd known the last time I rode a horse might have been the very final time (at the time).

*Blondiescot - mine is riding too, although I did know when it was my last time really.

I had ridden since the age of 3, my daughters also started at 3 and we have now 'backed' my granddaughter at 3!

I never had my own horse though until I was 50. I saw an ad for a lovely elderly gentleman who needed a retirement home, but was still capable of 'happy hacking'. I was by then at home all day as had to give up work, and with the help of my daughters, I took Sydney on. He perked me up no end. He was a 'been there done that' horse - had had a wonderful life, but as his owner had hip problems, and he was very wide, she could no longer ride him.

I couldn't 'ride' per se, as have no core muscles left and couldn't use my legs. It was a 2 man job to get me on, and off, but I had the balance left still and I did ok. He became 'voice activated' for me, would only go up a gear when I said he could and behaved impeccably for me always! Other people though, he would enjoy himself far more, knowing they could cope, and he brought on a little lad, my neighbour's boy, who looked like a pea on a drum, but ended up as a work rider for Andrew Balding! My daughter took him on a local charity ride - he started off plodding down from the stables, and as more horses joined him to the start he became progressively more interested, he knew what was going on and got so excited that we had to drop his reins on to the bottom ring of his bit - even then she could barely pull him up! We didn't let him finish it because it would have been too much for him, but he had a fabulous time - just gave him extra Bute and he was fine! As time went on his arthritis became worse, and after riding him the time for me to recover got longer and longer. When the time came to say goodbye, I think he had chosen it - he got himself cast in the field next to the fence and couldn't get up, he hadn't even really tried. I called his other Mum and we waited for her and her daughter to come - in the end the vet said she had never seen anything like it - there were 9 of us saying our goodbyes. Whilst we waited, he was fed his favourite treats, Murray Mints, parsnips, squashy pears and apples from the tree next to his field. It was awful, but it couldn't have been nicer .... I miss my old gentleman dreadfully, and am having a little sob now ....

My husband has dementia and I doubt we will go abroad again but there are so many places in the UK we haven’t visited yet and I still drive. We are driving from Devon to North Wales to his home town next month and his two ‘20 something’ granddaughters are joining us so he can tell them about their ancestry. Hopefully lots more journeys to look forward to and I won’t know if it will be the last time until I realise it will be too difficult. May have to change to short train journeys and a couple of days away but all is not lost until I run out of options but thankfully we live in a lovely seaside town so will enjoy home and our memories of those last times.

I won’t let myself think of last times. Would not like to know when anything is the last time.

henetha

Oh thank you for that reassurance.
Silly me , thinking that I might sink!.
I used to love swimming and it's such good exercise. I will definitely try to get back into it. 😁

Great news- don't delay. It might take a bit of adjusting, as said, I can't do froggy legs now, and do up and down with any stroke. Take a float with you for the first few times- and do report back.

Having a very 'blue' day today, thinking back that last Mother's day was the last with my son still living with us, likewise Xmas just gone he was still under our roof, and those events last year were unbeknown to me 'last times'. He is doing very well now, happy and settling in his own home with his partner, and who knows, maybe grandchildren will be along in the not too distant future.
So, I am trying to enjoy and embrace all the things we do, just in case they will be 'last times'.