The Lasts
A love letter to Lisbon, the meaning of saudade, and why incurable illness has you constantly thinking about The Lasts
Three years ago, I stood at the top of a look-out point in Lisbon, Portugal. It was my last night in the city, and I’d spent a wonderful 10 days on holiday with my then-boyfriend, Mark. We celebrated my 40th birthday and got engaged, so in many respects it was one of my best trips ever. Yet on that last night in Lisbon, I started to cry as I thought to myself: ‘This could be the last time I ever come to Portugal.’
Three weeks earlier, I’d been diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. I want to stress that things are different now – my treatment is working, I feel well and I’m able to picture the future – but in those early days, all I could think was ‘I’m dying’. And when you think you’re dying, you spend a lot of time thinking about the life you’ve had.
Looking out over that viewpoint, I thought about my beautiful history with Portugal. I first visited with my dear friend Sophie in 2001, long before smartphones and social media. Her scrapbook notes that we fell asleep reading our books in the Botanical Gardens, which is definitely one of my tamer gap year memories. The following year, I won a scholarship to study at Lisbon University, and I lived for a month on a street whose charming name I still recall: Rua do Forno do Tijolo, or Brick Oven Road.
I returned almost two decades later, when Sophie was pregnant with her first child. It was another life-changing trip of sorts, as my friend prepared herself for motherhood, and we said farewell to a lifetime of carefree adventures together.
When you are diagnosed with a terminal illness, all of those experiences flash before you, and it wrenches your heart to think there might not be many more ahead.
There is a Portuguese word: saudade. Broadly, it means longing, or to miss something, and it goes some way to describing the way I felt then.
I suddenly longed for more time.
I longed for more trips, but also for more of the ordinary, the mundane.
I felt a deep grief for the loss of the long life I thought I had ahead of me.
My most desperate grief was, and still is, a longing for old age. I want, more than anything in this world, to grow old – not just with Mark but with the friends I’ve grown with for the last 43 years.
That night in 2022, I looked out over Lisbon and knew I needed more time. Mark and I had only been together for a year. I had a lifetime of experiences before him, but with Mark I’d had so little time. The more places we could go together, the more memories we could create.
With incurable illness, you spend so much time thinking about The Lasts.
‘This could be the last time I renew my passport.’
‘This could be the last house I live in.’
‘This could be my last holiday.’
It means there’s enormous pressure to make the best of those things. If it's your last trip, it has to be incredible. If it's the last birthday, it has to be special. If it’s the last time you see your friend who lives overseas, you have to make amazing memories together.
Last week, I went back to Portugal with my now-husband and two of my stepdaughters. I went to that same look-out point and I didn't think ‘this could be the last…’
In fact, I thought how wonderful it was to be returning somewhere with Mark; how wonderful to say ‘do you remember the last time we were here, when I sneezed on that street corner and I thought my sternum bone would shatter?’ How wonderful to spin the word ‘last,’ so that it no longer means ‘final,’ but ‘previous’.
I still think about The Lasts sometimes, but these days I think more often about The Firsts.
The first time I go to Glasgow (next week, for the Tour de 4 cycle event)!
The first time riding a bike in 15 years, feeling the freedom of zipping through London with the wind in my hair and the sun on my face, thinking ‘how cool to take up a new sport when three years ago I thought I was dying!’
The first time going to Parliament (to campaign for breast cancer drugs that will hopefully keep me here for longer).
The first time as a menopausal step-mum experiencing the transition from child to teenager, and thinking how fortunate I am when three years ago I didn’t know if I’d see this child grow up.
The first time I go to Seoul (next year, perhaps?)
The next time I go to Portugal…
I still think about The Lasts, but right now, there are more firsts than lasts. I hope to keep it that way for a while.
I love this Laura. It's really made me reflect on my own experiences and where I'm thinking lasts and firsts - and why some events (birthdays, Christmasses) can feel SO pressured because I'm planning them with 'what if it's the Last' in my thinking. Hooray for the firsts!!
Here’s to an eternity of returns ❤️