Doing things for the last time

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

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.

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

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

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.

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”.

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

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

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

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

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….