Evenings and Weekends

by Oisín McKenna

Thirty years, she’s looked after her sons. Thirty years, she’s arranged her life to make theirs possible. Now, they’re grown, and she’s practically incidental. She knows it’s normal. She’s hardly the first mother to have gone through it. But that doesn’t make it easier.

The whale is only a few metres from the booze cruise.

She learned as a child that things can be tolerated. All you have to do is focus on the details of each second, which are nearly always easier to take than the bigger picture. The bigger picture, of course, is hard to stomach.

surely that’s what a global catastrophe means for anyone: it’s not the loss of the world at large you mourn, it’s the loss of your world, your life, your boyfriend’s gorgeous little smile in the morning, the way he says mwah mwah mwah mwah while planting big slobbery kisses all over your forearm.

Does a dying person need to be convinced that they might not die, or do they need to be helped to accept that they will?

Why was it that her generation had to demand transformation, sex, adventure, comfort, stability, romance, conversation, intimacy, all from the one person? What’s so bad about settling?

I like the idea of making a formal agreement to care for someone for the rest of your life.’