About Last Times

Everybody put too much attention on first times: first kiss, first dance, first car, etc. For sure we are full of first times and it is good to notice them and to treasure them.

Also, we are full of last times and for some reason, we don’t pay too much attention to them. When was the last time you carry your kids in your arms? When was the last time you get together with your neighborhood friends for that last ball game?

For me, it got very real last week. Particularly last Sunday before sending my daughter to College.

Let me explain. We arrive to the US 10 years ago. When we were living in Mexico, we had an extensive extended family. We relied on the family for a lot of things, in particular during the weekends. We would spend the Saturdays visiting my parents-in-law and doing stuff with them and my sister-in-law. We would spend the Sundays at my wife’s grandma’s house.

Gatherings on Sundays were a really big deal. It was not rare to have 40+ people in that day going in and out the house. Aunts, uncles, cousins all getting together. We repeated the same routine for many years even after the passing of my wife’s grandma.

So moving forward, we arrived in Austin 10 years ago. I clearly remember the first weekend we woke up in our new house… Now what? No extended family, no friends, no persons to visit, nobody to entertain us. It was just the five of us sitting at the table.

It was a weird feeling and somehow, a sad one. I think it was then when the consequences of our big decision hit us like a train. It was the five of us… that was it.

We arrived in Austin during the summer and we really weren’t used to the intense heat of Texas. We didn’t know what to do or where to go. We ended up eating our way through the weekends in particular in one restaurant: BJ’s Brewhouse. We went there every weekend for I don’t remember how many months. It was in a BJ’s Brewhouse where my brother in law held the baptism party of my nephew a year before our move. Somehow it reminded us our family.

Suddenly it hit us. It would be up to us to entertain ourselves. We needed to learn how to do stuff as a family without the help of our extended family. We were in need of growth. Slowly, we were finding our way into our new life. Kids started school and we started to meet new people.  And after some months we found a family tradition: weekend’s breakfast.

We would sit on the kitchen table and eat breakfast together on Saturdays and Sundays. A bowl of fruit, pancakes, molletes, etc. The food was important but the conversation was more important. We discuss a lot of things during these breakfasts. We talked about our week, we made plans, and we fought for stuff. It was our weekly routine.

The kids were growing and not all the weekends we were able to have these breakfast. Soccer games, karate practices, eventually my daughter first job started to meddle into our tradition. However, we always know that from time to time, we would find the way to eat breakfast together.

Then, we arrived to last Sunday. It was the Sunday before my daughter would go off to college. We ate our bowl of fruit, and molletes. We were talking as usual when suddenly something hit me. Officially, this would be one of these “Last Times”. Don’t get me wrong, of course I know that this wouldn’t be the last time we will eat breakfast together but somehow, it felt to me as our last breakfast at the time we were living together in the house. I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but I got a nostalgic feeling. Not of loss, but a feeling of change, of evolution, of growth.

I decided to treasure this “Last Time” and this is how I ended up in front of my computer typing these words. When we finally went to help my daughter to get set on her new apartment, my feelings were now more about expectation, excitement and adventure. I was in awe for the big step and the new stage of my daughter’s life… and of all our family.

We move all the stuff from the two cars into the apartment and after setting everything up we went to have dinner to celebrate how good life is and all the new adventures we are about to experience… yes, BJ’s Brewhouse seemed appropriate.