Everything Is Beautiful and Everything Hurts

by Josie Shapiro

The sun hovers above the horizon, sending a channel of light down the harbour to the bridge, and I feel the light on my face. What a marvellous thing this is, being alive.

‘I don’t want you to go, Mum.’ Bonnie looked up at the ceiling for a moment and then back at me. I turned to kneel and lean into her, my arms around her body, my face in her chest. Her pyjama top was smooth on my cheek, and I breathed her in. She smelled of honey and death, and I let another wave of tears plunge me down. ‘Neither do I, my darling. But sometimes you can’t change your situation no matter what you do, and you have to be able to sit with that discomfort and ride it out.’ We stayed together, holding each other, for what felt like hours. My knees grew sore on the carpet. My arms twisted around her, her arms around me. I listened to her unsteady breathing for a while, until finally it eased into the more regular airy breath of slumber. Still I held her, unwilling to let go, to ever let her go.

IT WAS DARK WHEN SHE died, and it seemed as though the night had swallowed up everything outside her room. I knew that beyond the house the world still existed — that off to the west the hills sat surrounding the town, and that only a few minutes away the waves moved ceaselessly to the shore. I knew that somewhere on the road between Wellington and Ngāmotu, Helen was on her way, beetling along in her silver hatchback. Still, it seemed as though there was nothing else: just this room. Zach and I sat with Mum in the darkness. She was peaceful, her face undisturbed by pain, though her breathing was irregular, and often we worried that this was it — until she took another inhale and we’d relax, content to have another moment more. Around eight, a light rain started to fall. The sound on the roof was the music of sorrow, and Zach and I told Bonnie and each other our favourite memories of childhood: Mum watching every cricket game Zach ever played; the scones she baked;