The Not Knowing When the Last Time Is the Last Time

Unfortunately, it is a devastating realization that we rarely know when we are doing something for the very last time.

First Cup of Coffee will be up every Monday at 9:30AM. 

If you have a question or topic you'd love to hear on the show, you can do that here ~ Submit a Topic! 

Transcript

0:09

Good morning everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy, also writing as Jennifer K Lambert, author of Epic Fantasy Romance. I'm here with my first cup of coffee. Tastes so good, people. I got back from Tucson yet again late last night. Time is just a blur. Yes, I flew there on Thursday. I got in midday Thursday. Stepsister Hope picked me up at the airport. We went to my mom's house, ordered pizza, and emptied out her closet. It was fun. It was kind of fun. I was happy to have her help. We. My mom had a stuffed closet so full. She had complaint in later years that her closet was so full and that, you know, she still shopped for clothes. Being kind of a clothes horse and a party girl, but never went anywhere anymore. If any of you have had to do this, you know, it's this sort of experience of, I don't know, the nostalgia. There were things in there that I remember her wearing when I was young. There were things in there that were $175, with the price tag still on them. That's how I know how much they were never worn. You go through this and really start thinking about the value of things and the value of money and sentimental value and basically hope. And I made five piles. We had the throw away bag. We had the Donate to Savers pile. Tell you what, folks, if you are in Tucson, Arizona, the savers, on the north side of town, there's there's some scores. There you go. You can go get some amazing clothes if you're like a size six or smaller. Also, Hope made a pile of things she wanted. I made a pile of things I wanted, and I made a pile of things to take to my mom. Let's see that night. What was it, Thursday night? Oh, yeah. I just kind of crashed at the hotel. I was so tired again. Expense. That's like, oh, should I be paying to stay in this nice hotel? And yet also, it really helps. It helps buffer all the rest of it. So then on Saturday morning, I went over to my mom's at her assisted living, and I took her about four plastic bins because I like dug out bins from under her bed, which again was like kind of sentimental because, clearly these were like bins where she had put away sweaters for the summer and then never got them out again. There were also, like, summer whites that she had clearly put away for the winter, which I know this because that's how my mother taught me to do, right? That's what I do every year as I rotate out my wardrobe. I kind of do it four times a year now because there are spring and fall transitional things. I've been thinking a lot about about transitions and, you know, like how we how we don't know when something is the last of a thing, right? The last time we do a thing, you know, like the last time you put away those summer whites and then forget to get them out again. Right. With that decline of of age and loss of memory, one of the things I did as this sort of comes later in the story, but as I was clearing out the rest of the house, finding my step dad's, calendar, he kept this book with calendar dates. And from 2024. And he died in March of 2024, fairly suddenly. Well, quite suddenly within about ten minutes. But, it was not unexpected because he had been declining and he had COPD and his heart had been having some various, problems. And it was it was his time. And he was lucky that it was so fast, but it was also something where, you know, he was not in the hospital. He died at home. And I tried to resuscitate him and could not. But, you know, like seeing that the golf date he had planned for two days after he died, but then so much of it after being blank. Right. You know, so we don't know when is the last time we're going to do something. And I've been thinking about Renee. Good. And a lot of us have been very upset by that. And her being murdered in the street by a thug masquerading as an ice officer. You know, she didn't know that morning that that was going to be the last time she'd drop her kid off to school, and that some guy was going to shoot her in the face, you know? So I don't know if there's a point to that. It's just interesting going through those things. So I took all of that stuff to my mom. She she was great. She sat there like a little trooper and she tried on all this stuff. I went to the things we'd already taken to her because she'd been complaining that nothing in her closet fit. She's much, much smaller. She lost so much weight, although she's actually looking great now, she's gained quite a lot. I think since since being hurt, since breaking her hip. And I think you know it, she's got good nutrition in this new place, but she was complaining that she couldn't believe how much she had shrunk because there were some pants that were like, you know, Chico's size double zero. A point five is too big for her people. That gives you a sense of how small she is. Everything in her closet now fits. Oh, and then I took her out to lunch. We went out and had a very nice lunch, and then I had dinner with one of my sorority sisters, Mary Schweitzer. She says we saw each other 20 years ago, but I'm waiting for her to provide proof. She says she has proof, but it was great to see her, and she lost her husband last year. So it's interesting, you know, that here. These are women that I was in college with. You know, when we were 20 and now we're coming around to 60 and sort of seeing where we are in our lives, reconnecting. And she was very supportive about what I'm going through with both my mom and with David. And it was it was a great dinner. We had a really lovely time and I enjoyed talking to her a whole bunch. I ended up having more time on Saturday because my mom wasn't feeling great. I went ran a few errands for her, and then I got a In-N-Out burger and just took them to her assisted living, and she was really happy with that. And I had a moment. I had a really nice moment. When I went back down and I sat in the hot tub and it was very quiet. Nobody else was there, and it was just me in the hot tub, and it felt so good because my body was getting sore and the stars were incredibly bright. It was a chilly night. It was not the big turbulent bubbles, but the little bubbles like champagne bubbles. And they were bubbling up and catching the light. And and I felt happy, strangely. Maybe that's part of what I'm getting at when we don't know when something will be the last time you do a thing, and savoring those moments of just seeing the beautiful bubbles and the beautiful stars, that's what we need to do right? We live in the moment. So I was thinking about when I grew up in Denver and when my mom married my stepdad, David, the one who died in March of 20, 24. They had two houses. He had his house where he had lived with his wife of 35 years. She had the house that I grew up in, and they obviously did not need two houses. So they sold his house and then he bought the house in Tucson, and they snowbird it for a while. But then they decided to sell the Denver house. And so we were clearing out the Denver house, and this was easily ten years ago, which made this job much easier. I mean, my mom had already cleared out and downsized so much I'd spent a week there was her doing that, but he had told me that he was down like clearing out Leo's workbench. My second, my second dad, first stepdad. I've had three. My father, Leo, my stepdad, and Dave, my stepdad. My mom's been widowed three times. If you didn't know this. So second step dad was talking of first dad saying that he was, going through his workbench and felt like he had gotten to know Leo by, like, sort of deciphering all of the things that Leo had done in his, rather famously, shortcut method of home repair. You know, it's like when you tie up the bundle of cords, do you think about that? You won't be there when someone else unties it for you. But I went through everything. I went through, you know, all the, you know, the den and the various cabinets in the kitchen and all of the kitchen chores. And I brought back a whole bunch of kitchen equipment. And I was surprised that the most emotional I got, which I know I sound emotional now, but I really was doing pretty well and feeling pretty ruthless all that time until I got to like some of those kitchen utensils that I remember, you know, like going back to my childhood, you know, where you get sentimental over a wooden spoon. Hope and her husband, Galen, had me over for dinner that night, which was very nice and funny because it was just the three of us, and I think I'd only ever been over there for dinner when it was like six of us and a holiday. But this was like casual and just the three of us. But it was it was very nice that we had a nice conversation. Then I went over to my mom's and did one last thing. I needed help from maintenance to get high enough to hang a mobile for her and got that hung. And then I hit the road and I got home a little before six last night, and I was so tired I had to pull over twice to close my eyes, and I slept a little bit, which is unusual for me, but apparently I'm not as young as I used to be. And yeah, I don't know if it was just, like making all of those decisions. Everything you pick up, you have to make a decision, right? Keep take to mom, donate, throw away. Or does somebody else want it? I did make a drawer. Make a drawer full of things that I think my aunt might want. I did make one rule that if, if I didn't know what it was, I didn't get to spend any time trying to figure out what it was. It would just get thrown away. So now I am back home, and I am here for a month until I go to Love Lit Con in San Diego. If you don't have tickets, you should come. It's going to be great. We've been working a whole lot on love, lies and Ley Lines is up for preorder. I'm working on the covers of the next two. I need to give feedback on those. Today is going to be for business and catching up. And I got the Italian cover for Never the Roses and their title is roses of Midnight Rose to medicine, not to. I don't know if I'm saying that right. I don't didn't study Italian, I studied French, but I really like the cover. It's great. And so I'll share that when I can. They send it to me for approval, which is nice. We are going to be changing up the podcast schedule because Assistant Sydney has, like a big girl job now. And so we need to figure out our timing. So this may have come up a little late, that's why. But, we will let you know what the plan is. We might do, like, once a week and longer. How do you all feel about that? Let me know. On that note, I'm gonna try to catch up on some of the stuff. I hope you all are doing well. I hope you're getting your things done, and I will talk to you all on Friday. You all take care. Bye bye.