I don’t want to scare you by starting with a beginning; therefore, I will start from the end.

This is the end.

Every moment that we have endured has led us to the end. We all had beginnings, each separate, their own stories, and somehow, they molded into one; they became the same. So even though we started our lives on our own, we will end them knowing each other.

But with every end comes a last: last goodbye, last hello, last glance, last smile. Endings end with lasts, and even though lasts are entirely too permanent, I believe there is an importance to them.

Without lasts, when we would we ever value anything? Without the fear of it being taken away, would we live as if things had any significance? Although lasts are possibly even more frightening than beginnings–because they are so final, so all-ending– there is a strange comfort to them.

Lasts give us a reason to take every event in life and acknowledge the importance of it. And I would much rather live a life with meaningful lasts than one of inconsequential beginnings.

I have learned to value every moment I have had in my life: the good and the bad. I cannot be nit-picky, I cannot pick and choose what I’d like to remember–sadly, they are all stuck with me. But I can choose what I would like to do with these tangible memories I hold, so fragile in my hands, waiting to receive the word as to what their last may be.

I could try to keep them alive, pouring into them everything I have until their hearts beat without mine, but what good is a thought without a person to say it? So I will cherish these moments, and give them the courtesy of a last. A final goodbye.

That’s what this is.

The ending of all beginnings.

Of all the things we have done thus far in this life, this will be the most impactful “last.” This is where we finally have a last walk through, last hugs from those we thought we would know forever, last glances at the place that so many of us have called home, even if for just a short amount of time.

But these lasts are good lasts; they are acceptable endings. Beginnings are scary, but I fear never changing more than I do remaining in the never-altering existence of these lasts.

So I apologize, but I will not end this with an ending. I will end it with the thing that we fear the most, yet, it somehow simultaneously excites us more than anything we’ve known.

I will end this with a beginning. We are on the edge of our lasts and the beginning of our first.

May we embrace each one fully.