If we could know a moment was going to be a ‘last’, what would we do differently?

October 12, 2025 — 5.00am

We celebrate the firsts. We document them, share and record them. We archive them on Instagram grids and in baby books. We toast them with champagne. The first smile, even though it was probably gas. The first stumbling yet triumphant steps. The first time sleeping through the night, which in most cases is followed by several months of not sleeping through the night.

Jamila Rizvi: “I don’t remember it but there must have been a last time I piggybacked Rafi home from the park because his legs hurt.”

As our babies become toddlers and then children, it feels like the firsts are being played at double speed. First day of school. First best friend. First time riding a bike without training wheels. First birthday party where the parents don’t stick around. First award at assembly. First visit from the tooth fairy. First sleepover at the neighbours’ house.

What nobody tells you is that the lasts aren’t marked with exclamation or applause. In fact, we parents rarely have the opportunity to mark the lasts, even if we wanted to. They pass us by in silence, until some later date when nostalgia knocks at our door, and we realise abruptly that this is now a thing our kids “used” to do.

Confession time: I never really enjoyed breastfeeding. I found it painful at the beginning and both boring and lonely as time went on. But I did it. I did it because I could and because my son, Rafi, needed me to, and because every health professional from here to eternity told me I should.

Then, one night, completely out of the blue, Rafi stopped. He whacked me away, displeased by something unknown. Preferring to take a bottle instead, my 11-month-old maintained his insistence for a fortnight before I acquiesced to his will. And that was it. Breastfeeding over. No fanfare or farewell. Just a tapering off to nothing of something that had once felt all-consuming.

Rafi is 10 now. Double digits. A whole decade of lasts has come and gone without me noticing.

One day, you’re putting sparkly stickers on a potty in a vain effort to make the experience more enticing. The next, you’re trying to remember how long division works.

I know I’m supposed to be present, to savour the moment I’m living in. Not to reflect longingly on the past or think anxiously of the future. We try to stay focused, to play the games and sing the songs, while our hands flinch unconsciously; fingers searching for the comfort of an iPhone.

How are you supposed to know which moments will matter until they’re already memories? During the newborn phase, time feels like molasses: thick, sticky, dragging. The days are long. The nights even longer. Then, without warning, time seems to change its texture. It becomes elastic. It stretches and snaps. One day, you’re putting sparkly stickers on a potty in a vain effort to make the experience more enticing. The next, you’re watching YouTube and trying to remember how long division works.

I don’t remember it but there must have been a last time I piggybacked Rafi home from the park because his legs hurt. A last time he wore his Spider-Man costume to the supermarket. A last time that he played with his Transformers toys, acting out their missions and conversations. A last time he spoke in that little voice, mispronouncing “elephant” as “eff-e-laht” and Christmas as “Crim-ass”. Now he speaks clearly and voluminously about everything from Minecraft to black holes, Keith Haring to KPop Demon Hunters.

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When the lasts happened, I didn’t know they were lasts. If I had, I would have lingered a little longer

But that’s the cruelty of parenthood. You only understand the full weight of what “growing up” means, in retrospect. You look back and realise you’ve been walking through a boundless field of endings, too distracted by fitting in spelling practise, a trip to the supermarket and another Zoom meeting before swimming at 6pm to notice.

As my son grows, I find myself wondering about the lasts still to come. I comprehend abruptly that I am mourning them before they even happen. Anticipating and experiencing my own grief in advance. Am I condemning myself to feeling that pinch of sadness twice over? Or am I finally learning to savour the moment?

Because soon it will be the last Saturday morning when I’m woken by a tumble of flannel-clad limbs crawling into my bed. The last night Rafi wants to read together instead of alone. The last time he reaches for my hand when faced with a busy road. And someday – though I can’t quite imagine it yet – it will be the last time he lives in our house. Along with the first time he calls someone else “family”.

I used to think the hardest part of parenting would be the effort. The challenge of keeping a kid alive, fed, clean and vaguely socialised. But it turns out that the real challenge is letting go. The good news is that it happens slowly, and the bad news is that it happens slowly. When the next “last” comes — whenever it does — I like to imagine I will meet it not with regret, but with grace. Knowing that every ending is proof of a life having been lived.

His. And, in a way I didn’t expect, mine, too.

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